I Keep Coming Home
by PhantomEngineer
Summary: The Harry Potter series was written for children, based on real events. Everyone heals differently. A man takes the long road home, haunted by his past. Sometimes running away is the right this to do and sometimes you have to turn around and face it. It's not necessarily cheerful but the scenery is very pretty, as is the writing.
1. August 2017 (1)

The sun bathed the whole landscape in gold, soft and warm. It glinted off the lake, far below the rolling hills. The British weather came in for a lot of criticism and he definitely had complained about it at great length, but nothing could ever change the fact that British summers could be beautiful. It was neither too hot nor too cold, with a breeze gently spreading the scents of freshly cut grass and flowers through the trees, rustling the leaves in a loving caress.

The path, winding up through the woodland from the village by the lake, was not the easiest route up the hill. The man pausing both for breath and also to admire the dramatic scenery spread out before him acknowledged to himself that a significant reason for choosing the winding woodland path was not through practicality but rather through sentimentality. With an almost wry grin that no one was there to see, he accepted that his life thus far could be summed up as choosing the most difficult option whenever there was a choice to be made. By this point he knew himself too well and doubted it was a characteristic he would ever be able to change. Sometimes it worked out well, but often there was a certain amount of suffering involved.

He brushed back his dark hair, musing that it was a little long and he should probably cut it at some point. He rubbed the large scar on his neck, massaging it gently. It still tended to itch occasionally, and was stiff a lot of the time. It was, however, a minor irritation compared to what it had once been, and for that he was eternally grateful. He didn't like the way it looked, the way it spread from his jaw to down below his collar bone, not a clear wound but a tangled mess. Even though it had faded, it was still visible enough that he drew the occasional stare, but by now he had made his peace with the mark that covered the right of his neck, that even his hand could not hide.

Despite the scar, he wore a plain green T-shirt with a normal, open neck. Too much of his life had been spent hiding in fear. He was not ashamed of the scar, it was a part of him and he had accepted it. He had accepted the startled looks, the curiosity. He wasn't hiding anymore. Any more clothing would have made the hike up the hill an unpleasantly hot affair, but the T-shirt was just right for the weather and the walk. His jeans were old and a little frayed at the hem, but comfortable. His trainers were nothing glamorous, practical shoes he could walk in with no trouble. The trudge along the path had resulted in some mud, which didn't bother him. Nature and the beauty that came with it included mud. To sanitise the dramatic glory of the woods would lose something of the romance for him. The world was dirty, and there was nothing wrong with that. Beautiful fields often smelt of sheep, cows and manure. Flies congregated on corpses and shit in equal measures. Life had taught him that idealism was a luxury, that true beauty and inner peace came from the acceptance of the good and the bad.

He felt thirty-seven. It was a strange sensation. Too much of his life, he'd spent feeling too old for his actual age or too young. Torn between having to take responsibilities on at a young age, to face issues and problems far beyond the ones he should and the odd realisation that he'd never truly grown up, never matured into an adult in the way that normal people got a chance to. But now, after everything, here on the path he knew that he finally felt free. He finally felt at peace. He felt like himself, like he'd finally discovered who he was. And he was thirty-seven.

With a contented sigh, he swung his rucksack back onto his back. On the one hand, he knew he was being ridiculous in having packed so much into it knowing that he would be climbing up the steep hill through the gorgeous scenery. On the other, he knew that he had packed very little to bring with him, that a larger bag and an alternative route would have been far wiser. But no matter how much he may have tried or pretended to be otherwise, he was more sentimental that he let on, especially now. He had dreamt and fantasised about this walk up this hill for far too long to consider any alternative.

The last year in particular had taken its toll on him. He'd survived, but it had taken more of him than he had expected. What lay up the hill, at the end of the woodland path, amongst the sheer peaks had kept him going. It had helped him hold everything together when he thought he might fall apart, disintegrate to nothing. It had made him plan for this, his return. He had dreamt of his welcome for so long now, he almost couldn't bear it. The long hike up both helped him prepare himself, helped him accustom himself to this place once more. It brought him the calmness of nostalgia, the strange choking sadness of the past. It also built the tension, coiling deep in the pit of his stomach, drawing out the stress. Drawing out the moments until he arrived at his final destination. It was raising the drama of the act, from the simplicity it could have been to something with a flair. At this stage in his life, he could admit to himself, even if he were reluctant to do so to others, that he was something of a drama queen. This was the correct way, to his mind. It was the truest acknowledgment of himself, of the significance this hike and his final destination held to him.

He tried, amongst the hawthorn bushes either side of the path, to focus on the positive. The welcome that awaited him, that he prayed with every fibre of his being to all manner of deities he could never believe it, would be a warm one. He tried to not let the regrets for the past intrude on his thoughts, to let the longing show him alternative paths in his life he could have taken. He tried to forgive himself, as he often did, for the mistakes he felt he had made. Even more than that, he hoped that one day he could put his demons to rest and receive forgiveness from the only person he truly needed to hear it from. He knew all the excuses, the ones he had used to reassure others over the years when they too felt they had transgressed into the unforgivable, that he had been young. He had been lost. The memories never left him, or that slight sense of shame. A part of him always felt that it was beyond forgiveness, that to be forgiven would destroy the last remaining elements of him and shatter his very soul. In some perverse way, it was the guilt that kept him going, that drove him on. It was the feelings of penance that made him act, that had him walking up the hill. Only common sense prevented him from removing his shoes and doing it barefoot, which seemed more fitting for this pilgrimage through the best and the worst of himself, hidden deep amongst the soft birdsong.

Maybe, he thought idly, maybe now he'd have a chance to learn the names of the birds that sung around him, identify their different plumage. He tried to think of the future, but it always seemed like a gaping blank. Absolution was the only future he both hoped and dreaded, the only thing that lingered out of reach that he dared not grasp for. His mind caught in the eternal conflict between the ecstasy of being so close to his destination and the abject horror of taking the final steps, he stepped out of the woods, the path having led him out of them. To his left, the scenery fell away, sweeping downwards towards the glittering lake. To his right, the hill continued up in gentle rolls. He continued, one foot ahead of the other, as he had done all his life. He drank in the beauty of the landscape, but dared not linger too long incase his courage failed him and the journey onwards became harder still.

Breathing in the calm of the fresh air, full of so many competing scents ranging from the mild dampness of the leaves on the ground to the hint of sheep, he regarded the house before him. The woodland path had left him not far from the house's spacious garden, the old wooden gate of which he softly opened, noting the way it creaked as he let himself into the garden. The garden spread out before him, lawns interspersed with vegetable gardens and beds of all manner of wild flowers. It smelt heavenly, the richness of the soil surrounding his senses. The gentle clucking of chickens drifted lazily from the modest chicken coop. His footsteps crunched on the gravel as he walked along the garden path, choosing the path that wound around the house towards the front door. It was a reasonably sized house, built of the traditional rough stones left bare. The front door was neatly white-washed, though he hesitated briefly to look down the drive that led up to it, the route he had chosen not to take, the direct route out in the open. Breathing in once again, savouring the unmistakable cleanness of the countryside air, he faced the door, set his backpack on the doorstep beside him and rang the doorbell.

As he waited, he held his emotions in check. He dreaded and yearned for the opening of the door and all possible outcomes. He dreaded and yearned for the unspoken forgiveness of a warm welcome. He dreaded and yearned for anger and recriminations for the past. He dreaded and yearned for everything beyond the door as it opened abruptly and before his eyes stood a vision he had dreamed of, a vision whose pictures he had spent more time than he would ever admit pouring over. The woman before him was older than when he had last seen her with his own eyes, though she would undoubtably say the same for him. It did nothing to detract from her simple beauty. Her hair was still red, longer now and braided in a messy braid. Her clothing was as normal and rustic as her surroundings, plain jeans and a neatly fitted t-shirt, both liberally dusted with flour.

She gasped, her face awash with an agonised delight, and she flung her arms around him. He felt her warm embrace, like a pair of old pyjamas so comfortable he could spend the rest of his life in them, the gentle softness of her form replacing the memory of the harsh gauntness of grief that she'd been when he last held her wrapped tightly in his arms in their twenties. He inhaled the sweet smell of cinnamon that radiated from her, the welcoming aroma of baking. She drew back, a look of broken affection on her fair, freckled face as they gazed at each other. Gently, without a word, she drew him into the house.

He dumped his rucksack in the corner of the porch, amongst a variety of gardening tools and kicked off his shoes, bending to place them on the shoe rack, stuffing them along with the selection of hiking boots, wellies and trainers. Throughout it all, he did not let go of her hand, gently pulling him inwards. The wallpaper of the hallway was old and faded, a faint trace of a pattern remaining hidden amongst the dull cream. The hall itself was sparse but spacious, nothing littering the dark green carpet. She led him through the plain white door adorned with rabbit pictures to the kitchen. It was old, but serviceable with a rustic simplicity. The tiles beneath his feet were a dull black and cool even through his socks.

"Severus," she said almost breathlessly as she entered the kitchen with him in tow, "Severus, Harry's home,"


	2. August 2017 (2)

Note: While I don't intend to cover anything explicitly, there will be mentions, discussions and implications of a number of topics throughout this story that people may find uncomfortable. This includes: nuclear war, earthquakes, rape, torture, psychological trauma, eating disorders, disability, injuries, self-harm, death (a lot of death), abusive relationships and neo-nazis. Maybe more. In this and the next chapter, some of these points are casually referred to in conversation.

...

Harry was vaguely aware of Ginny saying, "Luna's out sketching," but her voice seemed to be far away as his eyes fell on the figure standing by the ugly yet practical kitchen cabinets. Every detail seemed almost timeless, familiar but shifted away from the memories he had once had. Plain grey slippers made perfect sense given the chill of the tiled floor, and ordinary nondescript black trousers. Harry smiled slightly in amusement at the fact that he was wearing a T-shirt bearing the Slytherin crest, assuming it to have been a gift. The man himself was slender as he always had been, though without the darkness or the rustling bats that had once cloaked him he seemed smaller and more vulnerable. Human. His hair was still jet black, falling to his jawline, his skin still the same pale brown. His face seemed almost unchanged from when Harry had first laid eyes on him twenty-six years ago, the nose still proud, the dark eyes still unfocused and unseeing.

A faint smile played across Severus's lips, as Harry said softly, "I'm home, Severus," before walking the few feet across the room to take his hands. They were almost exactly as Harry remembered them, strong with dextrous fingers. He raised them to his lips, pressing a chaste kiss to them. Severus copied him, likewise drawing their joined hands to his own lips and touching a brief kiss to both of Harry's hands.

"If you'd told us, I'd have come picked you up in the car," Ginny pointed out wryly, not really expecting his full attention anymore. Severus laughed slightly at that, and Harry had to smile. He felt his eyes swim slightly with tears and bit his lip in an effort to control the emotions within him.

"I know," he told her, his gaze not leaving Severus, "I wanted to walk up,"

"You always do," Severus spoke quietly, his voice as rich as Harry remembered from his childhood and dreams, in person now rather than the crackled video call that depended so much on the quality of connection and the insufficient speakers, "How long are you staying for?"

Harry hesitated, "I don't know," he admitted, "I left my cases with Petunia and Vernon, and I sent a couple of boxes by ship. Right now I only have my rucksack with me,"

"You know you're welcome here as long as you want to stay," Ginny told him, carefully folding some grated courgette into her large bowl of batter, "You always are," Harry realised he had no doubt interrupted them in the middle of baking.

Harry swallowed, releasing Severus's hands. Severus let them go without protest, leaning against the counter with a faintly sorrowful expression filtering across his usually expressionless face. Harry marshalled his emotions, fighting between saying what he truly felt and what he felt able to, ultimately settling for saying weakly, "I'd like to stay a while. Sometimes I think, maybe even forever,"

His admission was greeted with silence, Ginny pausing in her mixing though Harry chose not to meet her eyes. He kept his vision focused on Severus's hands.

"If that's what you want," Severus told him softly, his hands unmoving, which Harry huffed impotently at.

"Tea?" Ginny asked simply, breaking through any awkwardness or discomfort skilfully, to which Harry nodded gratefully.

"I'll make it, I don't want to interrupt your baking too much," he answered, hopeful that something productive and useful, even something as basic as making them all tea, would sooth his restlessness to an extent. He could feel all the varied feelings, so much more clear than they had been for years. The walk up the hill had been important, but now he was standing in their kitchen he felt more emotions than he cared to.

"Sit down," Severus commanded him, and Harry obeyed almost instinctively. The commanding tone was one he had not heard for decades, but still the promise of power resonated through his very being despite knowing that there was none. He took a seat at the kitchen table, on a cushioned wooden chair. He watched, almost enchanted, as Severus carefully put the kettle on. Of all of them, Harry knew it was Severus who made the best pot of tea. It was, undoubtedly, a consequence of the extraordinary talent he had had with potions, that allowed him to judge the amounts and brewing time so well. The familiarity with the kitchen layout meant that even sightless he could still smoothly find everything. The kitchen felt lighter than it had the first time Harry had sat in it, all those years ago when he thought none of them would ever smile again. The whole house had been awash with dark despair then, which had gradually lifted. A grieving sorrow remained, permeating every inch of the landscape, but there was an easy calm, a peaceful contentment that Harry was glad to let wash over him.

"Hermione and Draco will be here in time for lunch," Ginny spoke, spooning batter into the fairy cake tray with a practised ease, "We didn't know when you'd be arriving. You know they would have been quite happy to have picked you up along the way, if you'd wanted that. And Draco says if you want them to fetch your case or something on their way up it'll be no problem, they'd been planning on calling in on Petunia and Vernon on the way up or down so if it saves a trip they'll do it today,"

Harry gratefully took the mug of tea that Severus placed on the table in front of him, the tea just the shade he liked it. He was half amused half horrified to note that the mug he'd been handed happened to have an illustration of a doe, accompanied by the words 'After all this time' and 'Always'. Guiltily, playing slightly with the mug he replied, "That would be nice, thanks, if it's not too much trouble," as Severus took a seat besides him, placing a mug emblazoned with Coniston clearly intended for Ginny on the table along with his own, which was bedecked with green lilies.

The trays of fairy cakes were placed briskly in the oven, and Ginny took a seat by her mug of tea. She typed quickly away at her phone, before setting it down.

"Done," she informed him with a smile, which Harry returned bashfully.

"I'm sorry for not being in contact better," he apologised, but Ginny brushed it off with a casual shrug.

"I guess your phone doesn't work here, does it?" she asked him.

"No. I cancelled my contract when I left Japan anyway, but I'm going to have to get a new one at some point. I'm entirely reliant on wifi for the time being," he responded, blowing on his tea.

"The wifi password is still 'wormwood', all lowercase," Severus informed him quietly, taking a sip of his own tea, which made Harry smile. The silence which fell was a comfortable one, for all that it was full of words unspoken. Words that should have been said years ago, words that lingered on the tips of tongued, choked back, words that needed saying yet without a word they were already accepted, understood and acknowledged. They drank their tea, and Harry appreciated the way in which Severus could still brew him the perfect cup, just the right strength with the just right amount of milk, no matter the lengthy gap of time. Maybe, he considered, it wasn't so much that Severus brewed tea so perfectly for him but that he had grown accustomed to the deep comfort associated with his tea to the point that even tea he made for himself seemed substandard.

As they drank their tea, Ginny kept an eye on her fairy cakes in the oven, her quick glances speaking of a casual confidence in her baking skills. Into the peaceful lull, where Harry began to allow his thoughts to relax and unravel, he heard the sound of a door opening and then closing. Ginny swallowed audibly, and Severus called out in a firm but confident voice that undoubtably carried throughout the house, "Harry's home,"

There was no response. Without a word, the door to the kitchen was pushed open and in slipped Luna, keeping herself pressed firmly against the wall. She wore a blue summer dress covered in yellow fish, slipping off her shoulders and showing the frail form beneath. Her skin was no longer the palid translucence that it had been, the days in the sun having given her a hint of colour. Her dirty blonde hair was braided in a messy braid, strands of hair straggling around her face. She was barefoot, not seeming to care about the coolness of the tiled floor. She regarded the three of them with wide eyes, and Harry was careful to remain seated, his face neutral.

"I got some duck eggs," she said faintly, holding out the carton she was grasping in her hand, still not moving from the wall, her eyes fixed on Harry.

"Thank you," Ginny said softly, standing to go to her. She took the proffered carton before turning to consider the two men at the table, "Severus, why don't you show Harry the garden and the living room while we lay the table. He hasn't seen it in a while, it's probably changed," she suggested.

Harry nodded in understanding, standing slowly. Luna edged away from the doorway, a look of anguished guilt on her face as she hovered awkwardly by the sink. Carefully, with slow steady movements, Harry left the kitchen. Severus followed him out a few moments later, but not before Harry caught a glance through the doorway of him receiving a hug so brief it could barely be called a hug from Luna as Ginny shooed him away. He lent against the wall of the hallway, resting his head back and sighing.

"Let me give you the tour," Severus intoned sardonically, letting his fingertips rest gently on the wall. He walked confidently along the hall towards the living room, leaving it up to Harry to follow him. Harry did so, feeling a wave of nostalgia for being led along other corridors in the same fashion, many years before. The difference was that then there had always been bats circling their master. Severus carefully made his way into the living room and strode across the room towards the large french doors, which he opened with a flourish. He stepped cautiously out onto the small patio, gesturing to the garden at large, "As you can see, this is the garden. Allegedly it looks rather nice, and there is some scenery. I wouldn't know. If you would like to use your vision to regard the living room, I'm certain you will be able to see it far better than me,"

Harry gave the garden a cursory glance, before returning his attention to Severus. The man before him held his interest in a way a garden or mere furniture never could. As always, his face was impassive, utterly unreadable. Harry wondered if he sensed a hint of melancholy in his expression, or if that was just his imagination playing with his mind. Pausing he looked once more out at the garden and asked almost hesitantly, "Do your bats still roost in the eaves?" and Harry was sure there was a hint of sadness in the blank gaze.

"Yes," Severus replied, "Though they aren't really my bats anymore. I don't…" he stopped to take a deep breath to steady his voice in an unusual hint of emotion, "I don't even think the ones I used to know are still alive. It's likely their descendants in our eaves,"

"I'm sorry," Harry whispered, almost inaudibly, knowing that his words would carry.

Severus moved from the french doors, leaving them open to welcome the gentle breeze wafting scents of the hills in. He sat down on the comfortable red sofa with a sigh that seemed to speak of an unspeakable grief. Harry looked at him, the familiar figure at once so unchanged and yet almost unrecognisably so, there on a simple sofa. The room was light, the sun pouring in through the windows to illuminate it with a soft warm embrace. In addition to the sofa, there were two matching red armchairs either side of it, curving around a small coffee table on which there lay a sketch book Harry knew belonged to Luna. A few of her pictures were stuck on the cream wall, the ones that weren't of the landscape around but from old memories. Hogwarts looming in the mist, the Burrow in all it's chaotic glory, the shores of the lake covered with corpses. His eyes lingered sorrowfully over a small illustration of Severus, his figure obscured in a cloud of bats, with only his face clear amongst them. Bookshelves, filled with a variety of books on all manner of subjects covered the rest of the walls. Harry could see the _Harry Potter_ series jumping out from their place on the shelves to grab his attention.

"I knew," Severus said quietly, "I knew what would happen when we removed all the magic from the world. I always knew I would lose my psychic link to my bats, but it was right. Voldemort had to be stopped. The endless wars had to be stopped, and that was the only way. We all paid a price. I cannot say I paid the highest,"

Harry took a seat on the sofa with him, not quite close enough to be touching but near enough that he could with little effort, should he want to. He felt a crushing despair, the stresses of the world weighing down on him, combined with memories of a time when he'd held the future of everyone in the palms of his hands.

"Sometimes," he said sadly, "I wonder if we really did. We just ended magical wars, but now all I can see is muggle wars and muggle violence. A countdown to armageddon. A threat of nuclear war. Was it always like this, or were we just too busy watching the magical world tear itself apart to see the muggle world doing the same? Is this going to be how it all ends, humanity driving itself to the brink of destruction and plunging over the cliff?" he implored his former teacher for an answer, seeking wisdom, but all Severus could do was shrug. He hadn't been a teacher in a long time. He no longer needed to have an answer.

"All I could think," Harry continued slowly, "When I was leaving Japan, was how if it all ends in a nuclear apocalypse then I want my bones to be incinerated with yours,"

Severus gave no initial response to that, long legs crossed as he leaned back into the sofa. After a moment, he started speaking, his voice sorrowful, almost desperate with a restrained anguished passion, "I can understand the sentiment, though I never thought you would be the one to feel it. I have to believe that everything will get better, otherwise what is the point? What was the point? What did we fight for, for so much of our lives? I have to believe that this is merely a bad moment, that soon, any moment now, everything will get better and there'll be peace. No more bad news or suffering,"

He stopped, pausing with painful memories before continuing in a low, hesitant voice, "I… When the news of the earthquakes broke last year… I did not like our separation. I couldn't bear for anything to happen to you,"

Harry looked away, thinking back. He started uncertainly, "I was fine. Ultimately, it was fine. I have weathered far worse, I was in a relatively safe area. I can speak Japanese just fine, that helped," he sighed heavily at the memories, "And yet, I felt so helpless. The ground never stopped trembling. I stopped noticing it, it became the new normal. It was only once I got to Fukuoka that I realised. It just hit me, this weird shocking sensation of the ground not constantly shuddering. I almost didn't know what to do, with the still earth. My poor, beautiful Kumamoto…"

Severus raised a hand, hesitantly searching for Harry, and stroking his fingers through his hair when they made contact. Harry shifted closer, resting his head against Severus's shoulder and allowing himself to be held.

"Without magic, I was helpless," Harry continued, "At the mercy of chance, the tectonic shifts, whoever brought clean drinking water," he drew strength from the strange wiry strength that Severus had always exuded as he went on, admitting, "It brought it all back. The helplessness, the overwhelming feeling of powerlessness. When I wasn't actively helping out or volunteering, my mind kept drifting back to the war, to everything. To the constant danger, the deaths. The pain and suffering. Everything so out of my control. I kept seeing us on the tower, hearing you and Dumbledore face off…"

Severus's grip tightened momentarily, a subconscious flinch at the memory. He swallowed, stroking Harry's arm gently, "I'm sorry," he said.

"No," Harry responded firmly, "No, you did the right thing. Thank you, for killing him. Have I ever told you that? Thank you, thank you, thank you so much,"

Severus paused in his caress of Harry's arm, before snorting gently in mild amusement. It was not a night he liked to remember, and an action that few would greet with gratitude.

They sat in companionable silence, before Harry asked almost reluctantly, not really needing the confirmation, "Luna still has difficulty with me,"

Severus sighed heavily, "She knows it wasn't you. She's better than she was. She wants to be alright with you again, she just needs to adjust to having you here, in person,"

"I'm sorry for leaving," Harry said, meaning it.

"You did what you had to do," Severus answered calmly, the wisdom of age and the years spent thinking it over resonating clearly, his fingertips moving to comb through Harry's hair, "We all reacted differently, needed different things. You needed to escape,"

Harry closed his eyes sadly. He knew, that amongst those varying desires they'd all had, Severus's priority had been the same as always, to care for and protect him. In his absence, he'd done his best for those left behind.

"I couldn't bear it," Harry admitted, "Luna… it's neither of our fault, but I couldn't bear the way she would flinch, the fear. I couldn't bear the suffering I would unintentionally inflict on her. I couldn't face Ginny. She looks too much like Ron, like all her family. I could see all that she'd lost, and so much of it felt like my fault. Hermione too, left with nothing. Her family as good as dead to her, Ron and the Weasleys dead too. And Draco, the only world he'd ever known gone, knowing that magic would have fixed his spine if there'd still been magic, if we hadn't removed it all. The awful horror of not knowing how much Minerva knew, if there was still something of her left,"

He swallowed, guiltily, "I needed to forget for a time, to see other things. I knew that everything would be alright here, because you were here. I'm still sorry for leaving you to pick up the pieces. You've always been too good at that. And I'm still sorry for everything you lost, too. Even knowing beforehand, it must have hurt,"

Severus had no reply to that, staying silent and letting the bird song and gently buzzing of bees drift into the room. Harry let his gaze wander from the greenery outside to the books on the bookshelf. The colourful Harry Potter covers held his attention as they often did. The seven original books had been joined by a copy of _Harry Potter and the Cursed Child_ , which his eyes rested on idly.

"Sybil never did know when to leave well alone," he grumbled, well aware that he was almost certainly being unfair.

"She didn't know it would become so big," Severus said, calm and perfectly rational, "She thought it would be just a book, a simple series for children, a way for her to rewrite reality to provide release and an illusion of a happy ending. She asked our permission, and it's a blessed relief that she altered all our names, skipped on the details. None of us ever imagined that her choice of therapy would permeate the world to this extent," Harry could tell by the tone of his voice that Severus had no doubt spent a lot of time thinking about the subject, coming to terms with everything in his own private way.

"I know," Harry admitted, reluctantly, "I know, but some things I struggle to forgive her for,"

Severus leaned back, unconcerned. Hermione had theorised that it was because Severus had spent so much of his life subsumed in magic that had left him almost ageless. Harry felt a twinge of guilt, the misery and shock of the loss of magic had been agony for him, and he knew it had hit all of them far harder than they ever could have imagined. For Severus, he thought, as he often did, surely the pain must have been so much more. Until magic was removed from the world, Severus had lived a life of pure magic virtually since birth. He had given up the deep connection with his bats, a fact that Harry found painful to even consider, a reality that must have been far worse for Severus.

"It seemed petty, the way she often described you. She went out of her way to describe you as ugly for no good reason," Harry continued petulantly, but Severus just laughed.

"Harry," he said with great amusement, "What does that matter? I'm blind, I always have been. I've never seen my own face. I've never known what I look like, I've never cared. What did you think she would write, the man covered in bats? She was aiming for a hint of reality,"

Harry laughed at that, "I know, I know I'm being unfair. But I can't help it. When people say stuff about me, about the Harry in the books I just brush it off. Nobody's perfect and Sybil wrote a sensationalist, fictional version. When it's the rest of you, either the way it was written or the way people then go and talk about it online, then it can hurt. Petunia cried so much with the first book, it took all I had to reassure her that I had always been happy with them and it was just artistic licence. But with you I get angry, really angry. And I know that it's stupid, but I can't help myself. I just want everyone to acknowledge you and your fictional counterpart to be as amazing as I think you are,"

Severus shrugged. He had after all known Sybil for far longer than Harry, even if the two of them had never been particularly close, "She was a Seer," he reasoned simply, "She spun tales based on a reality few of us could see. Sometimes she embellished. Making up a story of some kind was always in character. To write an innocent story of a reality the world doesn't know about made sense to her, just like leaving worked for you. Just like art helps Luna. We all heal in our own little ways. With such an eager audience, why should she not continue?"

"I haven't even read Cursed Child yet," Harry confessed, "It wasn't really a priority. I wasn't even sure if I wanted to. Dudley suggested we go see it, but what with the jet lag and everything, it wasn't really practical,"

"We've a copy," Severus informed him, "For if you wish to read it, at your leisure,"

"I think I will," Harry answered slowly, "I've been spoiled anyway, I mostly know what happens. I think. Well, I sort of know some scenes and stuff like that, from tumblr. But it does seem fair to read it at the very least,"


	3. August 2017 (3)

I literally don't care if no one likes or reads this story. I'm only writing it for myself because it makes me feel better. That's why the conversations and thoughts probably go round in circles. I fully recommend a different story, either one of my other ones or just literally anything but this. Have a lovely day.

The next chapter will probably be set in the past.

While Draco talks about the plot of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, I'm fairly confident they don't count as spoilers. Aside from anything else, I haven't read it myself.

...

The car, sensible and blue, drew up to come to a park in the drive. From the driver's seat Hermione emerged, a burst of energy heading straight for Harry. He enveloped her in a hug, just as eager and heartfelt. He felt the strength of her, radiating outward as it always had done. He inhaled deeply, breathing in the mixed hints of all the elements that combined to make Hermione. They stayed there, just holding each other, a desperate embrace that seemed to stretch back through the decades to the first moment they'd met, crawling all the way back to the present. Almost reluctantly, they broke free of each other's arms, drawing back to look properly at each other. Her hair, he noted, was in cornrows down past her shoulders now rather than the natural bush it had been when they first met, rather than the chemically straightened style she'd worn for a time when insecurities had gotten the better of her, rather than the shaved head as she grieved when Harry had left, or the bleached blonde bob she'd used to hide her past more recently. She looked well, a healthy glow to her dark skin and her brown eyes were bright with what Harry suspected might be tears. He couldn't guarantee that his own were entirely dry behind his glasses.

They stood frozen, gazing at each other, Hermione's hands resting on his shoulders. The years and all the distance seemed to fall away. Just like they had been at Hogwarts, there was hardly a need to exchange words out loud when they could see each others face. Harry didn't know exactly how long they stayed in place, lost in memories and each other's presence, but Hermione eventually broke the moment that could otherwise have stretched on for the rest of eternity until they both died and their flesh rotted from their bones still held in the intensity of their connection.

"We brought your case from Petunia and Vernon's, it's in the boot," she informed him, her voice rasping slightly with conflicting emotions that he could see threatened to overwhelm her much as they did him.

"Thanks," he replied, both grateful for her and guilty at the way she had collected his belongings for him at Ginny's request. Drawing away from her, he saw that Draco was already out of the car and in his wheelchair, a feat undoubtably accomplished while his focus had been wrapped up in Hermione's embrace and presence.

"My turn," Draco demanded with his customarily confident smile, opening his arms to offer himself to Harry. Harry couldn't help but laugh, heading for him and reaching down to envelop him in a warm hug. Draco in some ways was still entirely unchanged from the first time he'd met him, utterly confident and expecting the world to revolve around him. Now, the seemingly self-centred attitude and way in which he drew in everyone's attention like a black hole from which no scrap of light could ever possibly escape was delivered with a certain twist of self-deprecation. His hair was still impossibly blonde, cut short and immaculately neat despite his constant tendency towards running his hands through it. His eyes the same faded grey-blue that had seemed so icy when they first met but now seemed like the sorrowful mists over an abandoned harbour to Harry.

As they broke apart, Hermione once again caught his attention. She'd removed his case from the car boot as well as a reasonably sized duffel bag, and Harry hurried to take the suitcase from her.

"I'll help you," she reassured him, but he objected.

"I can manage fine, don't worry," he told her, taking the case and lifting it alone. It was heavy, but not too heavy. He had managed to get it from Japan to England. He'd hauled it across London, from Heathrow to Dudley's flat. Even more recently he'd taken it on the train from Dudley's flat in south east London to Petunia and Vernon's house in Lancaster. He could carry it from the car into the house, and within the house he could carry it up the stairs to the spare room. Thus ladened he followed the others inside, grateful as Hermione casually exchanging his backpack from where he'd abandoned it in the porch with the duffel bag presumably containing her and Draco's stuff, following him up the stairs.

The spare room was where he remembered it, sparse in its practicality yet welcoming. He set his suitcase down in the middle of the floor, with Hermione leaning his rucksack against a white wall, underneath a dramatic painting of the Forbidden Forest on fire, clearly another artwork by Luna. Both of them paused, looking at the vivid flames, remembering the heat as it had played across their skin as they watched the real flames flickering, all those years ago. For a moment the silence was awkward, and Harry felt a shattering, shuddering, stabbing pain at the distance and years that had come between their friendship. He felt Ron's absence between them as a gulfing chasm that might never be bridged.

Hermione sat down on the bed, the sheets a pleasantly floral blue, and sighed. She was wearing Gryffindor socks, Harry noted with a vague amusement, a tiny detail so easily overlooked. Her skinny jeans were tight and high waisted, closely hugging her figure, and she wore a tight white T-shirt with black silhouettes showing an altered version of the March of Progress which ended with Darth Vader. He'd seen it before, on Draco's tumblr, but he hadn't realised that the T-shirt (and by extension presumably the breasts contained within it) that Draco had posted had been Hermione's. He'd rolled his eyes in amusement, which combined with faint embarrassment tended to be his general reaction to Draco's tumblr, which tended towards Snarry artwork for reasons Harry had never quite fathomed. The exception was to the political posts, which Harry felt were increasing in intensity. He'd often avoided politics, rarely paying attention for years on end, but Draco's activism had started to reawaken his anger at the world. If he ever needed help forming an opinion he knew that Draco and Hermione combined were a powerful wealth of knowledge and insight.

"I've brought presents for you all," Harry said, breaking the silence as he knelt to rummage in his rucksack and suitcase to find them all. Hermione watched him, her eyes faintly sad, until he said, "Is it really ok for you to leave your stuff in the porch like that?"

Hermione smiled wryly and stood up, "Probably not, I should put it in our room,"

Once she'd left, the room felt lighter yet emptier and Harry regretted having spoken those words rather than some other ones. Maybe ones that opened up a dialogue to explore what they had been through together, face to face, and come to terms with what lay between them. Or maybe ones that lightened the conversation, general chitchat and an exchange of news, which somehow seemed to be so inadequate with Hermione after all they'd been through together. He had time, he thought resolutely, time ahead of him to find the right words and she did too. They could both be patient, especially now that they were older and wiser.

He withdrew his gifts, both from his case and from his rucksack. He'd already given gifts to both Dudley and his partner, as well as to Petunia and Vernon. Mostly it was just weird flavoured chocolate (green tea kitkats were aways a guaranteed favourite with any of them after all) and strange sweets. He was particularly partial to the sweets that had the exact same shape and texture as grapes as well as tasting very similar to grapes, despite not actually being grapes, and he knew that Draco would be excited to receive a pack of them again. He should unpack, he thought vaguely, but he knew he wouldn't do it yet. Maybe in a few days. Unpacking was a chore he disliked. It was the symbolism, the implication that he was staying anywhere. In some ways, the simple act of having enough possessions to fill a suitcase, let alone a whole room, filled him with horror.

He had always liked the feeling of being able to just leave, to run away the moment everything got too much. The moment the people he saw everyday started to become friends. Acquaintances he could cope with, just about, but true familiarity was to be avoided. He'd started to relax in the last few years, staying a total of eight years in Kyushu, five of which had been in Kumamoto. Four of those years in Kumamoto had even been in the same place, the same little flat, seeing the same people, going to the same shops. He'd avoided that for a very long time, and maybe he would have just stayed settling into a new life until his life was literally shaken apart by the earthquake. He'd rethought then, torn in two. Part of him wanted to just rebuild, to put down the roots the earthquake had tried to shake free. He didn't want to run, be chased away by bad circumstance. And he hadn't been, he'd stayed to rebuild, to remain a part of the community. But the other part of him, the part of him that wanted to rebuild his old life, the one he'd abandoned with the people he'd left behind, that part had eventually won. He wasn't giving any guarantees, that he'd stay, that he'd let the roots he'd torn up regrow, but he wanted to at least give them a chance. He could always go back. He'd realised that now, that you could make more than one home, and you could always go home. So he'd come home, to this home, knowing that his other home was still there. Just like when he'd made Hogwarts his home, he'd still had a home with the Dursleys.

Into this contemplation came a faint knocking on the door, which Hermione had left ajar. It was closer to a scratch than anything else, a clawed flurry against the paint. He looked up, and was surprised to see Luna hovering in the doorway.

"Lunch," she said and Harry nodded his understanding. He expected her to leave after that, but to his surprise she stayed there, looking awkward but with a strangely determined aura. He stood up slowly, afraid to scare her.

"Hug," she said, so rushed and unclear that Harry was certain he'd misheard her, until she opened her arms slightly and repeated, voice tight, "Hug, please?"

Cautiously, he walked towards her. She flinched slightly, but stood her ground with the same fierceness she'd once battled Death Eaters with. Harry was torn, a part of him delighted to see that fighting spirit again, a part of him heartbroken to have it directed at him rather than the enemies it had once been saved for.

"Sure?" he asked gently, "You don't have to do anything you don't want Luna, I do understand," but she shook her head violently. Slowly, gently, he put his arms around her. She leaned into the hug, returning it. He could feel her heart pounding, the way her whole body was shaking. She felt so tiny, a frail, bony little bird fluttering in his embrace. He made sure to not grip her, to ensure that she could break free at any moment, even though all he really wanted to do was to hold her so desperately close and never let go. She laid her head briefly on his chest, and Harry could feel the subtle threat of tears pricking at his eyes. By the time she raised her head and drew away from him, he was blinking back tears and a portion of his T-shirt was slightly wet, from the tears Luna had quietly shed.

"I do trust you," she said softly, her voice firm, though there was a hesitant element remaining as if she was still convincing herself of that little detail, "I know it wasn't you, they just looked like you,"

"I'm still sorry," Harry said sadly, letting her step away, back into the doorway. He looked at the assortment of gifts resting on his case, wondering what to do with them.

"Leave them for later," Luna said, "Lunch first, then presents?" Her voice had never really recovered, it was still raspy and hoarse around the edges. Whether it was physical or psychological Harry didn't know but she clearly preferred to whisper rather than raising her voice to any significant degree.

He nodded, following her softly down the stairs. He noticed, to his amusement, that she was wearing slippers now. Not sensible slippers like Ginny or Severus, but fluffy monster feet, with glittery claws. They suited her, the bizarre combination of a slight woman with ridiculously childish fluffy monster feet. They looked warm, which was maybe not necessary in the current season, but he imagined they were very snug in winter. There was something of the Luna he first met about them, back when they were still students at Hogwarts, back at a time when things had still been alright, briefly.

The kitchen table had now been laid, and both Severus and Draco had already taken their places. Harry sat down besides Draco, opposite Severus, and Luna with a skittish flash of a smile chose the seat as far away from him as possible. Hermione took the seat opposite her, next to Draco and Ginny sat down opposite Draco, in the middle of Luna and Severus. It made sense, Harry thought, Ginny and Draco being in the middle of the table as they were the best options for passing food and holding the conversation in general.

Sure enough, Draco had started talking before Harry had even managed to start to help himself to any of the food. It was, for once, about the food though, which Harry did appreciate.

"Hermione made the humous," he said handing Harry the plastic tub containing the aforementioned humous. Harry couldn't help his amused smile as he took it and spooned some onto his plate. Humous wasn't commonly available in Japan, and he had missed it, but he did find it sweet the way in which Draco had no reservations about pushing Hermione's achievements on anyone who gave him the chance. A lot had changed since their first meeting, and plenty had stayed the same, in a way that was just growing up.

"How have you been, Harry" Hermione asked, ignoring Draco.

"Alright," Harry answered, "Somewhat jet lagged, not quite used to Britain yet, but it's good. Still exciting to get to eat things like humous and real cheese, still keep bowing to people without thinking. I was really grateful Dudley picked me up from Heathrow or I might have gotten hopelessly lost on the tube. I'd almost entirely forgotten what British money looks like, it took me ages to find the right coins to pay in a shop and then I stared in wonder at the change I received so I bet the shop assistant thought I was mad,"

"You seen or read Cursed Child yet?" Draco asked cheerfully, pushing the conversation firmly towards abstract fantasy rather than the practicalities of life, "Seeing as you don't watch or read so many of the other things I would bore you to death about I may as well go for something you stand a chance of keeping up with,"

Ginny snorted, "Since when did you care about whether anyone was listening or understanding?" she teased him, the barb more affectionate than savage.

"Not yet, I'll do so eventually," Harry replied, "All I know is everything you've posted on your tumblr, so I suspect I have a pretty good idea of the whole plot,"

Draco nodded sagely, "Yes, I think I must have posted the most Drarry-hinting lines, which was pretty fantastic even if it's not really my favourite,"

Out of the corner of his eye, Harry could see Hermione briefly put her head in her hands. He'd never entirely understood their relationship, but somehow it seemed to work. Draco had once claimed that it worked because he was perfect but Hermione had said it was because they didn't listen to each other, which was probably more accurate.

"Though I am most definitely there for all the Albus/Scorpius shipping, talk about adorable. They're so cute together, I should draw some pics or something soon," Draco continued casually, to Harry's slight horror. It wasn't exactly news, as these things tended to drift across Draco's blog, but it was different to hear it stated in real life.

"Draco!" he exclaimed, somewhat scandalised, as Ginny sniggered and Severus calmly ate a spoonful of potato salad. Hermione and Luna seemed to be exchanging amused looks, but Harry's focus was on Draco.

"You ship my non-existent son with your non-existent son?" he asked incredulously, not entirely sure how to take this piece of news. It was both strangely personal and yet also entirely fictional. He should, he thought faintly, be entirely used to it.

"Oh, don't worry," Draco laughed, giving Harry a mischievously roguish wink, "I'm still whole-heartedly a Snarry shipper. Can't get enough of that one. Which reminds me, I read the most amazing fanfic the other day-"

"Draco!" Harry once again interjected, half scandalised, half embarrassed laughter. Severus, he could see, was merely rolling his eyes slightly with an accustomed air that implied that Draco talked about his shipping preferences for whatever he was enjoying regularly. Luna was laughing, a relaxed bubbling of mirth that made Harry freeze in his objections.

The gentle lull of conversation continued, drifting to a different topic, but Harry leaned over to Draco and asked him quietly, "It helps Luna?"

Draco frowned at him for a moment, then understood, "Snarry? Shipping the characters as fictional? I don't know really, but it does seem to make her laugh and that's never a bad thing. It's not particularly personal, you know that. It's the characters not you, and it was probably easier with you not here,"

Harry nodded in understanding, letting the topic rest. He asked Ginny for the cheese board and she passed it to him. He dithered for a while over the options available, grateful for the variety and also unable to make any decisions as it had been so long since he'd regularly been able to have such a choice of cheese. To his bread, freshly baked by Ginny, he added some cheddar and added some chutney with a homemade label. He also cut a few chunks of Port Salut and Brie, which he ate with pleasure.

"Anyway," Draco said to the table at large, continuing his train of thought whether anyone wanted to hear it or not, "Cursed Child. It's so so in my extremely humble opinion, you know? Some good bits, like the sadly short-lived scene of Snape and Harry's lesbian wedding, some less good bits like the Voldemort/Dumbledore sex scene,"

"The WHAT?" Harry exclaimed as Hermione and Luna collapsed in giggles at the other end of the table. Ginny was visibly fighting laughter. Severus smiled enigmatically, giving nothing away. Harry looked incredulously at Draco.

"That is most definitely a lie," he said, half amused half concerned. He was fairly confident it couldn't be real, but he couldn't exactly be completely certain.

Draco looked offended, "Would I lie to you?" he said, as overdramatic as possible, "Oh you wound me, Potter. I'm not sure if I've ever been as wounded in my life. The betrayal… After all these years I thought we were friends but no, you've just been playing with me. Toying with me. So cruel…"

Ginny was laughing now, rolling her eyes. Harry was certain that Severus's lips twitched, hinting at suppressed laughter. He continued looking at Draco, one eyebrow slightly raised.

"The drive-by shootout comes as a bit of a surprise, of course," Draco admitted, cheerfully spooning a large helping of coleslaw onto his plate. Harry gave up and started laughing too at this.

"You're being silly," he complained, but Draco only shrugged nonchalantly.

"Silly is good, fiction is fun, fandom is life," Draco enthused.

"Are you ever serious?" Harry laughed, "Why do you like these fantasy worlds so much?"

"What else do you want to talk about?" Draco said, his voice suddenly serious, the conversation changing as sharply as his tone of voice, "Real world events? Literal neo-nazis? Marching and chanting? In power? Threatening violence? Actual, real, neo-nazis? Trust me, I'd know,"

Harry nearly flinched away, for the first time in a long time feeling a degree of fear for Draco, the passion and anger in both his voice and on his face reminding him of the power he'd once had. The table was silent, awkward, as Draco returned to eating now subdued. Harry regretted having pushed the topic now, both for having upset Draco and damaged the happily relaxed atmosphere that had presided until the outburst.

"Are you still selling cakes to the tea shop in the village?" Hermione asked into the silence.

"Yes," Ginny answered, "It's doing alright as a business. I'm not sure how much longer they'll be wanting them at the current quantity though, the beginning and end of tourist season tends to vary a bit depending on the weather. We always play it a little by ear. And Luna's prints sell reasonably well, the pictures that we can sell that is,"

The tone had changed though, and the conversation was more stilted. Draco didn't sulk for long, but his cheerful conversation was more strained, more visibly an effort to keep everyone smiling.

With lunch over, they moved to the living room to drink tea and enjoy some lavender and courgette fairy cakes. Hermione and Harry each took an armchair. Luna curled up in the middle of the sofa, her head resting lovingly on Ginny's shoulder and her feet partially on Severus's lap, who didn't appear to be in the least bit bothered by this positioning.

"How's things at Jodrell Bank?" Harry asked, sipping at his tea and looking over at Hermione. She was tilting her head from side to side, stretching her neck muscles.

"Fine," Hermione shrugged noncommittally.

"Just fine? Nothing more?" Harry asked again. It wasn't a very thorough answer as to her workplace or how her professional life was going and he felt faintly hurt that she wasn't willing to give him anything more. She looked at him skeptically, faint amusement playing across her features.

"Tell me, Harry," she said, with an affectionately patronising tone, "Do you understand what I do at Jodrell Bank? Do you understand what my job entails? Do you really want to know all the details?"

Chastised, Harry nodded his understanding, taking no offence. She was right, he had only the most vague idea of what she did and knew that precise answers would just fly over his head. Presumably none of them understood her job, though Draco probably had the best chance of doing so.

"OK then, answer these questions: are you happy, have you found aliens yet and would you tell us if you did?" Harry tried again with a smile.

Hermione laughed, "I'm happy, not as such and that's confidential," she answered, giving him a slight wink.

"There's some guy there she hates," Draco added, his opinion unasked for but still appreciated by Harry.

"Was," Hermione corrected sharply, adding to Harry's interest.

"A work place rival?" he asked, intrigued, "…And, did Draco have anything to do with him being in the past tense?"

Hermione sighed and rolled her eyes, "He was just a rather odious man, he got fired with nothing to do with me or Draco but just because he was not entirely competent and allegedly groped one of the data inputters. I had to work with him briefly and he managed to be infuriatingly stupid whilst also convinced of his own superiority. I don't think he liked me, having the audacity to be black, female and infinitely more capable than him. But he's gone now which is a blessed relief. Draco cannot actually get people removed, no matter how much he might like to pretend. This is reality, not fantasy land,"

Draco shrugged, and Harry could sense a frustration that he hadn't been able to help Hermione with this unnamed man. Presumably there had been long months where she would come home and complain at length about him. Draco had once been able to dispose of people with relative ease, through a combination of political and financial power. The Malfoys had been major players in the Magical World, playing a crucial role not only in the ultimate outcome of the war but in the Ministry and Death Eater ranks. He'd adjusted well to his new life, so entirely different from everything he had known, but Harry realised there must still be moments when he missed the Magical World. Harry felt the same, for all the bad that they had experienced, magic had been amazing. There were so many elements from his teenage years that he bitterly missed. Magic, Hogwarts and all the people who'd died.

"It's nice to have you back," Hermione commented, and Draco nodded his agreement, "We were worried about you during the earthquake even though you kept saying it was all fine. And more recently, with well, you know…"

"It was fine, in the end. Maybe not ideal, but I was ok. Earthquakes are easier, in a way. Or maybe they're just easier because I've experienced it so it seems less abstract, less intimidating. I never thought I'd need to actually learn what to do in the event of a missile strike though. That kind of threat, that's from actual other people, that's actual war. I thought that was all over…" Harry drifted off, and there was nothing much that anyone could say.


	4. July 2002

Hermione cried, slumped on the floor lacking the energy or emotional strength to move, the photo face down beside her. She wondered some days if she would ever be alright again. After all the effort that had gone into staying alive, she sometimes wished she hadn't survived. If she'd died during the war, along with virtually everyone else she knew, then she wouldn't be left here to face the shattered remains of her life and her world. The dead were laid to rest, the living faced the task of picking up the pieces and somehow continuing. The fact that the bodies were lost, buried in the collapsed confines of Hogwarts, swallowed down leaving nothing but desolate Scottish scenery with no hint of what had happened prevented any true knowledge of how many people had died, no funerals or direct opportunities for grieving. Yet at the same time, it was neater. There was nothing left to deal with, no need to care for the dead. They were merely gone. Forever.

The same had happened at the Ministry, at every house or building that was held together with magic. Without magic, they'd all been consumed, wiped out of existence as if they'd never been there. If they'd never been there to start with, Hermione's life would have been easier. Magic had been amazing when she'd first received her Hogwarts letter, when she'd stepped off the train straight into a magical castle. She had thought it would solve everything, as long as she studied hard and learnt as much as she could. She had never thought that everything would fall to pieces and she'd be left with knowledge and qualifications that were ultimately useless. That after having been the star student all her life she would find herself an adult with no qualifications, no education to speak of, no future.

She looked once more at the photo, one of many that she'd strewn across the floor of the basic studio flat, and once more was overwhelmed with grief. It was one of the few remaining photographs of her with her parents. They weren't dead, unlike the majority of the people in the other photos on the floor, but to her they were as good as. What had seemed at the time to be a stroke of genius was now a decision she would have to live with for the rest of her life. Removing their memory of her and sending them to the other side of the planet had protected them for the duration of the worst of the war, had meant that they were safe and no one could use them against her as she fought. Now, with no magic left, there was no way for her to undo her spells and return their memories of her. Without magic there was nothing to offer as proof if she approached them, nothing but a mad girl making a wild claim. She'd lost her parents, forever. Her whole family, every single one of them, knew nothing of her existence. She had disappeared from their lives and their minds, by her own choice and now there was no way for her to return.

Minerva padded over to her, nuzzling her gently. Hermione stroked the tabby cat, a fresh wave of tears welling up. She had stopped thinking of the cat as Professor McGonagall and started calling her Minerva. It felt disrespectful yet the title hurt her. She had no idea if the woman she'd once known was still there. She didn't know which was better. It still grated with her, the way that Snape had so casually left her to be responsible for the cat. The way he'd coldly stated that hopefully she was just a cat and that any traces of the woman she had been had been extinguished, that had shocked Hermione to her core. Another proof that he had no human feelings. As she looked into the tabby cat's eyes, she accepted that she was starting to understand what he had meant, even if the harshness still jarred. Minerva was stuck as a cat, with no way to change back. Maybe being unaware that she had once been human would be kinder. Just as it was probably kinder for her parents to never know that they'd once had a daughter. Just as she wished she was ignorant of so many things. That she was just a normal muggle.

A flat was no place for a cat, she thought bitterly, still resentful of the way in which Snape and Ginevra had disappeared away to some house in the middle of the Lakes. She knew, logically, that it would have been impractical for them to take Minerva with them and more importantly she would have resented it had they tried. Maybe she'd forgive them one day. Maybe she'd never see them again. She didn't care anymore.

Of those left, she found Draco the easiest. She just pitied him. His hesitation had saved her life. By association, that had ensured Harry had survived too. And in a way, that had ensured that his friends and family had died instead, along with the ideology and world he'd been raised in. It was strange, in a way. Hermione wondered if it was connected to the privilege he'd been accustomed to, that meant that he had lacked the conviction to kill. Strange, given that it was the belief system that had permeated his entire life, yet it was Ginevra and Headmaster Snape who had proved to be far more effective executors. It was Ginevra, with her steely determination who had been a Death Eater to be feared, carrying out Snape's orders with an air of complete calm. Even now, Hermione couldn't face either of them, even knowing that they'd allegedly been on her side the whole time. Ginevra had been by Snape's side, who'd been on Harry's side. Hermione, to them, was just a person who's life was perfectly expendable. Harry had always told her they were on their side, but Hermione knew it wasn't that simple.

Harry had never been rational or capable of sound judgement when it came to Snape. He'd always let his emotions and assumptions take control. Initially this had taken the form of an obsessive hatred, which Hermione had struggled hard to contain and balance. When that had changed, still obsessive but no longer hateful Hermione had found it harder and harder to understand him. Snape had scared her just as he'd scared everyone the first time she'd seen him. It had been her first explicit understanding of magic, sitting in her first year Potions class as he spoke quietly, as the bats fluttered around them. Watching them crawl over his skin, clinging to his hair and clothes, had always revolted her somewhat. There was always a sense that it was in a way unnatural, so very far from her understanding of the way the world should be.

Hermione had been a wide-eyed, innocent girl when she first started Hogwarts, but she'd always done her best to believe the best of everyone. It felt now like she'd spent her whole life disagreeing with Harry over Snape. The first few years she had been determined to respect and think well of their teacher, once her trust and good opinion had disappeared it felt like Harry and her had changed in their stance on him. She had always thought her opinion was logical and well thought-out in comparison to his which seemed to come from a deep, twisted emotional reaction. Even more than Draco or even Voldemort, Snape had seemed to inspire an intense reaction from Harry.

Harry had disappeared, just gone away somewhere and she had no idea where that was. A part of her felt guilty for her part in that, for the way she had screamed at him that it was all his fault. A part of her was relieved, that she no longer had to face him and those feelings. That she had time to forgive him, so that she could apologise eventually. The logical part of her, buried deep, knew it wasn't really Harry's fault, even though he had been the instigator of so much. He had merely been the tool with which it ended. Voldemort and Dumbledore were the ones who had set it up, had started everything. No matter what the price, Hermione accepted that it had to end. Endless war destroyed everything eventually. Maybe there had been a better way, but what was done was done.

She would never stop loving Harry, she knew that. She'd loved him for too long. Given up too much for his sake. To stop now, to give up on their friendship would make all of the sacrifices of her life were worthless. But now a part of her hated him as well. Wished that he had died, so she could have mourned him and moved on. It would have been easier to forgive him then. If it had been a heroic work of fiction he would have died to save them all. But it wasn't, he lived and it felt sometimes like everyone else had died. Ron had been the glue that held them together so now that he, along with his entire family, was gone, Hermione and Harry had fallen apart and Hermione was falling to pieces. Disintegrating in the face of grief from which she could have no respite. She knew, technically, that Ginevra had survived. The sole living Weasley, but she no longer counted her as one. She hadn't for years now. She doubted if Ginevra considered herself to be a Weasley in anything but name, and even that was a name she rarely ever used.

But Draco, who she'd hated so much for so long, she could hold a conversation with. He still disgusted her to an extent, and she was still afraid of everything he had stood for, but she found comfort in talking to him. There was no need for games with him. They had been on opposing sides and now everything was over. Just as she was realising how much she had been brainwashed into an obedient soldier, he was facing that too. They were doing so from opposite points of view, but in a way that helped. When she lashed out about Dumbledore, the Order, any of those people she had known, there was no way in which Draco would defend them. Likewise, she felt no obligation to have anything nice to say about Voldemort and his Death Eaters. They both felt betrayed by Snape and Ginevra. Betrayed, angry and afraid. They both felt abandoned by Harry, who had ended everything and left them with nothing.

Maybe it was unfair of them to expect anything from Harry. It wasn't like there was anything he could do to change things. There was nothing he could do to ease Hermione's or Draco's pain. He was as powerless and human as they were. Reduced, brought firmly back down to Earth, normal. They were all so ordinary in their mundanity now. Muggles, just like she had believed herself to be as a child. A memory she barely remembered, overwritten with the glory of magic. And now magic had been carved out of her, torn away never to return. Draco would never understand what it was like to have been consumed by the magical world only to be spat back out, back into the dullness of the muggle world. To him everything was new, even if it was everything he had been raised to fear and despise. It was odd that his family had still had money stored away in muggle banks, and yet it was also in character for the Malfoys to have a financial safety net, just in case. She hated him but still used his money. All of hers had been consumed when Gringotts collapsed. Ridiculous, that the pureblood family had thought to split their finances but the muggleborn hadn't.

What did she know, she grieved to herself, stroking Minerva's head softly. She had had grand dreams of learning and understanding. Yet all she found herself to have truly learnt was the art of warfare. She knew how to deal with explosions, how to cover her face from shrapnel. Keep your eyes closed and your ears covered. Nothing could save you from a direct hit, but if you were far enough away you had a chance of survival. She'd learnt not to underestimate the amount of damage the noise of an explosion could cause. What kind of buildings were most likely to withstand the blast and what structures were safest for shelter had become second nature to her at an age she should have been innocently exploring what kind of woman she was growing into. How could this knowledge ever be useful again? She hoped that it never would. But there was a heartbreaking realisation that she had, unknowingly, been raised as a child soldier. That her teenage years and early adulthood had been devoted to survival and military tactics. To fighting a war that she now didn't understand. At the time it had all seemed so clear. Dumbledore had convinced her as he had convinced Harry. As he had convinced them all. But as time had worn on she had started to question why it had begun, why there was no hope for peace, why the word of magic she had been so enchanted with was determined to tear itself to pieces, to leave nothing but death.

She knew what it was that she was fighting against, that much was easy. Even now she regarded Voldemort as truly evil, just as she had when she'd first become aware of him as a child. She had resisted him, as he had wished to exterminate people like her. But to resist something, to fight against something was not the same as to fight for something. She fought against Voldemort. By association she had believed that that meant she fought for Dumbledore. Then she had believed she fought for Harry. The final battle she had fought for herself, against anyone who would do her harm. By then she had started to lose faith. The faith she'd had in Dumbledore's lofty ideals had been shattered by Harry, and her faith in Harry had been shattered by his resolve to end things by any means necessary. She had helped him, willingly but uncertain. The guilt haunted her every waking thought and lurked in the dark recesses of her nightmares. Some of the guilt was for not having helped enough, maybe had she fully committed the end result would have been better. Some of the guilt was for having helped at all, maybe had she refused or fought against Harry the outcome would have been better. But no matter what she thought there was nothing she could do but live with what had happened. She should probably be grateful that she was alive and well. She had survived, unlike most. She was unharmed compared to Draco or Luna. But so often she found the wish that she had died, that she was dead, drifting into her head as if thought by someone else.

As a child she'd listened to her mother's tapes of Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds over and over again. She'd loved the whole concept album, though she'd never found the time to read the original book. She'd been too young then, and then her life had been consumed with war. The only reading she'd done for years had been about dark magic, defensive strategies and military tactics. Research for the most effective manner of defeating enemies. Effective methods of torture and obtaining reliable information. There had been no pleasure in books. Now there was time to read and lose herself in fantasy worlds as much as her heart desired, but she had no desire to do anything. Even reading was too much effort. There was a line from the album that she'd always thought to be so overdramatic, that as a child she'd never been able to comprehend how anyone could ever feel that way, but now it echoed through her consciousness on repeat. _The survivors will envy the dead_.

And now, now as the words repeated over and over in her mind she could understand. It would be easier to be dead. If she was dead it would all be over. But she was alive and there was nothing she could do but try to continue surviving even though her life had lost all meaning. And with every repetition, she remembered the way her mother would smile, the way they'd talk about books for hours when she was still young, the way that she'd never have that relationship back no matter what she did.

Minerva purred, utterly oblivious to the thoughts running through Hermione's head. It had been Minerva, the professor, the woman, who had taught Hermione a lot of battle techniques. From the first lessons in how to take evasive action, ducking and running, back in the first few years of her magical education, to the more advanced spells and strategies of her final years preparing to serve on the frontline. She had admired the woman. Now she fed her from a tin and emptied her litter tray.

"Why?" she asked hopelessly, neither expecting nor receiving an answer. Draco was the only one she could contact who might answer her, even if his answers were as grief-stricken and clueless as her own. For all that they were in reach, Hermione would not reach out to Ginevra and Snape for anything.

Ginevra had been a sweet child when Hermione first met her. Ron's little sister. Everyone had called her Ginny then. But sweet little Ginny had been abducted by Voldemort under his original name of Tom Riddle, and as he had promised, Hermione now knew that Ginny had died in the Chamber of Secrets. The girl who had returned had still used the name of Ginny for a while but she'd been changed, even if it took them far too long to notice it. Ginevra had claimed to be a spy, working against Voldemort with Snape. Gathering information and saving lives. Harry had accepted that, seemed to have known all along, had shown no objection. His trust had never been shaken. But if they had been saving lives and passing along information then shouldn't they have known what Harry was planning, and been able to save more people? That thought haunted her and she found it hard to forgive. At the very least one of them could have warned her of the outcome. She refused to believe everyone was ignorant of what would happen.

But more than anything she couldn't believe that they were unaware of what had happened to Luna, the girl who had been Ginny's friend. Hermione had naively believed that even Ginevra had cared for the odd girl, but no one would leave their friend locked away in a basement to be raped repeatedly without batting an eyelid. No one who had a heart. No one capable of empathy. Hermione hated visiting Luna in hospital, so in a way it was good how often she was restrained and barred from having outside visitors. Seeing the feeding tube made her feel sick and Luna had so far refused to speak a single word to her. The fact that Ginevra had chosen to disappear away into the countryside seemed to speak volumes about how little she really cared. Except for Snape, maybe. They seemed to care for each other in some twisted, dependant manner, if two people utterly bereft of human feelings could care. She hadn't believed the rumours about them when they'd first begun, as Ginevra had been so young then. They had all still believed her to be the same innocent Ginny, saved from the Chamber of Secrets. Now, however, she wondered if there wasn't some truth in them. Ginevra had definitely spent far too much time with Snape late at night even then, sneaking around, even before she was his Head Girl. A combination of the young Tom Riddle's lingering hold on her and Snape's constant seduction would explain why she had grown into such a cold and cruel woman.

In comparison, Hermione felt like on the inside she was still the same person she had always been. She hoped she was. She wasn't on the outside. She had recently shaved all of her hair off. She didn't quite know why, except that she had wanted to be new. To be someone different. Removing all her hair had felt within her limited power, seeing as she now had no power to speak of. As they camped out on the run from Voldemort, searching down his Horcruxes and killing his followers, she had kept her hair short from practicality. Now, she had no reason to care for it so she'd let it grow into a tangled mess.

It had felt good, sitting on the floor in the shower, the water washing away her tears as she let herself go numb. She had started with her feet and legs. She'd never shaved her feet before, but she had decided to shave fully and from the tip of her toes to the top of her head seemed the best way to do it. Her legs were simple, a body part she was familiar with shaving. She'd worked her way up, slowly removing every hair she could find. Her head had taken the longest. The only moment she'd hesitated in her steady, methodical shaving was when she came finally to her eyebrows. Removing them would be visible, in a way even more odd and visible than having shaved her head. But she felt committed to the act, as if it was vitally important that she finish. So they were carefully shaved off as well. They were only made of hair, they would grow back. Her eyelashes were the only hairs remaining when she dried herself off. Maybe once the stubble pricking and itching its way through her skin had regrown to proper hair she would be a new Hermione, able to cope and deal with her new life. Maybe this made her as mad as Luna.

She wondered how Draco would react when she next visited him. Would he insult her, would he laugh at her, or would he understand her. Maybe he wouldn't even notice, so wrapped up in his own suffering. Maybe she meant nothing to him, simply his sole, occasional visitor. Maybe once he was released from hospital he would disappear like Harry. She wondered if she cared. He could go be obnoxious far away from her. His face reminded her of too much. Maybe it would be better for her to stop visiting him, to start her life anew. But she didn't know where to start, so for now she was wasting hours of her life sitting by his bedside. It wasn't like she had much else that she did, except crying on her floor and talking to Minerva. Buying food and eating it. She rarely felt inspired to cook, and she didn't have much in the way of cooking utensils anyway. Harry's aunt and uncle had done their best to help her, giving her some basics to set up her new little home, but she hadn't been able to be grateful. It had been a kindness they didn't need to show her, but they had done it anyway. They had helped her with the flat too. She hadn't seen them since, hadn't contacted them, hadn't made any effort. She was barely alive, living off discounted sandwiches and cheap alcohol from the nearby supermarkets. Maybe she should visit Draco more, for lack of anything better to do. Maybe one day she would find the strength to start looking through the information Dudley had given her about adult education, which lay in a pile on the floor.

She wondered what normal, muggle children learnt. She had not thought it odd how much of the Hogwarts curriculum was dedicated to the art of war. How she had spent her teenage years learning how to fight and kill. Somehow it had crept in slowly as she grew up, the need to learn defence against an unknown, mysterious enemy. The Dark Arts and all who practised them were evil, that was a stated fact that she had been taught week in week out since she was eleven. It was in all the permitted textbooks of Hogwarts. Even in her first year they had had drills, where the alarms sounded and they took protective action, normally in the form of cowering face down, their protective hoods up, eyes closed and hands over their ears. Planned drills had only been occasional then, no more than once a month, but after that year they had increased in frequency. Plus they had had the real alarms, even if some of them turned out to be false. Dumbledore had started performing drills no longer planned and warned for in advance, where they would know it was coming and be prepared for the sirens in class. Then they would crouch, eyes and ears covered, under their desks as they waited for the all clear sign. But the drills without warning, where they had no way of knowing if they were drills or a real attack, those came at any time of day or night, and each time brought a deep fear and uncertainty. The alarm cut right to the bone, piercing her heart like shattered glass. She still heard it echoing in her dreams.

But she'd loved it anyway. Even now she longed for the simplicity of her life in the castle, always watched over by Dumbledore. They had all loved Hogwarts, even Voldemort in his strange, twisted way. He had defined himself by his love and hate for Hogwarts, staked his whole identity in opposition to Dumbledore. She had been heartbroken when muggleborns had been banned, no longer accepted as first years. Ironically, that decision had no doubt saved those children's lives though they wouldn't know it. She had no longer been a student but a solider then, heading off to fight in the never-ending war. Only it hadn't been never-ending, because it had ended. She'd served as as soldier for the cause only for a few years before everything had ended. She had been fighting for victory, for survival and for an ending. But she hadn't been fighting for the ending she got. Voldemort didn't win. Neither did Dumbledore. Not even Harry had won. No one won. Everyone lost.


	5. September 2017

The autumn chill came softly, seeping into the house slowly. Harry appreciated the gentleness of it compared to the sudden drop he had grown accustomed to. He watched as dull red started to caress the landscape, oozing across the leaves of the trees surrounding the house in silent, patient preparation for when they would fall. He helped Ginny in the garden, harvesting whatever she directed him to, learning to tell what was ripe and what wasn't. She even trusted him to pick the raspberries every evening by himself, bringing in large bowls for them to eat. Some Ginny would freeze, for later use that Harry assumed he would discover at a later date.

Here, life felt slow. It was peaceful though. Harry wasn't sure if he was entirely happy, but he was probably content. It was likely the same for the three he shared the house with. Maybe, he thought pensively, being content was enough. Happiness seemed to be fleeting and insubstantial. But being content was reassuring. He felt at home, for all that he'd never lived in the Lake District before. He had camped somewhere in the region with Ron and Hermione a long time ago, hiding and hunting, back in what felt like another lifetime. He had had no appreciation for the area then, too caught up in the hardships of their reality and the constant dangers that had consumed their every waking thought. Now everything was different, and yet some things were still the same.

Hermione and Draco visited again, another weekend of staying, a routine presence that twisted at Harry's heart. The realisation of their regular habits delighted him with their company, but it also demonstrated plainly what he had missed over the last few years. His absence felt lonely, the years of being away in other countries smarting at the sting of the time lost. He did not regret his travels, the people he had met or the places he had seen, but he did regret the distance it had placed between him and the people who he considered his second family. He had missed his real family as well. To return and realise how close they all were, how tightly bound they were, it allowed the insecure voice inside to wonder if he truly belonged with them, even knowing that he was one of the main ties that had bound them all together in the first place. They hadn't needed him once the war was over, their friendships deepening and strengthening as he faded away, erasing himself from their realities.

He drifted to the kitchen to make himself a cup of tea and help himself to some biscuits while the rest of them were preparing for the regular monthly event of Draco and Hermione piling into their car and driving back to their home. Hermione had suggested he come visit them, even musing about the feasibility of him returning with them, but he had put it off for later. For the time being, he was content to stay where he was, to see if he was willing to put down roots for as long as Ginny, Luna and Severus considered him a welcome presence. The real question in that equation he knew was Ginny. Severus would placidly welcome him without objection. Luna was still disquieted by his presence, so he struggled to judge what of her skittish behaviour was normal for her and what was a reaction to him. It would be Ginny who might ultimately judge him to be causing harm to either Luna or Severus, who would, with her gentle but firm manner, tell him to leave. It was her who held control. For all her affection for him, he knew that she would prioritise Luna and Severus, that she would do what she considered to be necessary, as she always had done. He had always admired that steely resolve of hers, and he knew it was what had drawn her and Severus together.

Draco seemed to materialise out of nowhere, a feat impressive for a man in a wheelchair, but Harry had been distracted, both by his thoughts and by the kettle.

"Making tea without telling anyone?" he asked with an amused smile, his trademark good humour brightening the room, "I thought that was a crime in this house. I'll have a cup, though just a small one seeing as we'll be hitting the road soon,"

Harry rolled his eyes at the cheerful confidence Draco exuded, pouring him a delicate china cup full of tea in addition to his own mug, setting them both down on the kitchen table. He had taken to using a mug that had the Harry Potter glasses and lightning bolt scar in stylised black on it, mainly because it seemed to amuse Luna. He hadn't worn circular glasses like that in a long time, currently favouring tortoiseshell rims in a style he was starting to suspect might be faintly Japanese, and he was forever grateful to Sybil for creating such an iconic scar for his fictional counterpart rather than the hideous reality he lived with.

"How can you be so optimistic?" Harry asked suddenly, deeply curious about his one-time rival's state of mind. They had been rivals when they first met, which deepened to pure enmity and then changed to a strange truce as they found themselves to be amongst the few survivors. It was Draco he had communicated with the most regularly out of the people he had known from Hogwarts. He chatted with the Dursleys in the family WhatsApp group chat, but aside from that his contact with those he had known in had Britain tended to be erratic. Being mutuals with Draco on tumblr meant that they interacted, even if it wasn't about anything personal they still had a strange kind of contact.

Draco frowned at the question and looked away. He seemed to be considering it fairly, which Harry was grateful for. He almost expected a flippant reply, but he knew that there was more to Draco than the smile he often chose to present to the world. For all of his silly ideas and jokes, he had survived a war. He had lost everything and somehow rebuilt his life. His ideology had been shattered, and now he was effectively a muggle when he had been raised to despise them. That he continued resolutely, re-evaluating everything he had been taught and reforging himself, was something that Harry rather admired.

"Because I have to believe things will get better in some way. Because I have to believe that the worst won't happen. Otherwise, why are we still alive?" came the answer, slowly delivered and almost reluctantly voiced.

"But we've already lived through this," Harry reasoned, his mind fatalistically falling back to the last few hours of the war, "And it was the worst case scenario, don't you think? No one really won, everyone just lost everything. So many people died when the magic went away,"

He closed his eyes briefly, then rephrased, owning his responsibility, "When I removed magic, it wasn't anything super complicated. It caused all those deaths but that was a chain reaction. I couldn't direct it. I… didn't mean for so many people to die. Like a mutually destructive nuclear war. It ended our war, but mainly because there's nothing left. If America and North Korea go to war… If they have a nuclear war…"

Harry trailed off, struggling to continue, is mind torn between fears for the future and memories of the complex calculations of a spell.

"I feel like every time I look at the news something worse has happened," he admitted, "Like everything is just getting steadily worse and there's going to be a point when it's all inevitable. North Korea shot two missiles over Hokkaido in like two weeks, imagine what it must have been like to receive alerts about incoming missiles… And Trump just escalates things with his terrifying tweets and off-the-cuff remarks… What if they do test a hydrogen bomb in the Pacific Ocean? That has to go over at least Japan to get there… The early warning system is great, but it doesn't give much warning. It's a matter of minutes…"

Draco lifted his tea to his lips, though it was too hot still for him to drink. It was more a gesture of comfort, warming his hands on the heated china and smelling the reassuring aroma. Harry had missed good English tea so bitterly in Japan that once he'd settled at a regular address he'd asked Petunia to send him packs of Yorkshire loose leaf tea. In some ways that had been the first sign that he had been healing and was ready to return. He had been abroad for long enough and had travelled widely enough that he would still sometimes make himself a good cup of chai or a delicate pot of jasmine tea with the same sense of homecoming as he received from a cup of Yorkshire. He wondered if he would still be in England come summer, and if the summer would be hot enough for him to crave a cold barley tea like he was accustomed to in the heat of the Japanese summer. For now, everything in England was still too fresh and exciting, old foods and flavours that he hadn't had regularly for so long. There was something of his childhood in everything, memories of a more innocent time overwriting the memories of the war that had been all he could think of in relation to Britain until quite recently.

"Muggle children don't normally learn about war, not outside of some theoretical textbook notation of dates, but elementary school children are having drill in what to do if there's a missile or something. It wasn't odd to us, when we were at Hogwarts, but now I know that it is. Children aren't supposed to be anywhere near war," he paused, then continued softly, "Neither should adult,"

"I don't want to think about that," Draco said simply, answering the question succinctly.

Harry stared at him in surprise.

"I want to believe that history won't repeat. I want to believe that the muggles will get it right. I want to believe that I can help, in some small way, to help make everything alright," Draco sighed, seemingly having difficultly fully explaining himself, casting his eyes around the kitchen.

He seemed to pause, looking at the pile of letters stacked haphazardly on the table, before continuing lightly, though there was a hint of a strain to his smile, "Well, looks like this week's New Scientist will be about the countdown to nuclear annihilation, so that might be right up your street,"

Harry followed his gaze to the front cover of the magazine.

"I've been reading it to Severus," he said idly, considering the evenings when he had sat besides his ex-teacher and read aloud words that he didn't always understand. At least once he'd mangled a pronunciation so badly that Severus had called Ginny in to correct him, and he hadn't felt that his mistake had quite warranted the edge of hysteria to the laughter his original attempt had induced in Ginny. He had enjoyed her laughter though, so he had not taken too much offence at being on the receiving end of it.

"Usurping Ginny's role, I see," Draco smiled, clearly poking the topic of the conversation towards more lighthearted themes.

"She doesn't seem to mind," Harry said with a shrug, "We took turns reading last week's one. Maybe we'll do the same this week,"

He smiled at the memory of that evening, "Luna listened too. The first few times she kind of hovered in the doorway, but last week she came and sat on the floor by my feet. It was nice. She was a bit restless at first, but then Severus joined her. It seemed to me that she was almost at peace,"

"He's nearly sixty," Draco objected with a hint of mirth, clearly not entirely serious, "You shouldn't be making the poor man sit on the damn floor,"

"He's got less grey hairs than me!" Harry exclaimed indignantly, "Besides, I didn't make him do anything. I never make him do anything. I try not to at least," he cast his eyes down, uncertain now.

"True," Draco agreed, giving him a critical look, choosing to ignore Harry's uncertain mumbles in favour of judging his hair, "But you've not got that many,"

Harry was if anything less reassured by this, "I've got more than any of you lot," he huffed, feeling somewhat nostalgic at the idea of being casually insulted by Draco. It was almost like being a first year again, fresh off the train and sneered at with an offhanded disinterest.

Draco shrugged, "Severus is just weird. You know that, it's probably the magic. He doesn't really count. Malfoys are blonde. Very blonde. My father…" he stopped abruptly.

"Your father wasn't very old," Harry pointed out, before wincing in regret at the words. Lucius and Narcissa hadn't been very old when they had died, and no matter how he considered it Harry was aware that he was the major contributor in ultimately causing their deaths.

"My grandfather…" Draco started again, before shaking his head, "Look, my hair had always been nearly white. It'll just fade a little, I guess. Luna's blonde too, blondes just fade. Ginny maybe the same, I actually don't really know about redheads that much. Not my area of speciality. And Hermione is perfect in every way,"

Harry snorted, letting it go. He knew he had the occasional grey hair but it didn't really bother him that much. He was alive, which was in many ways entirely against all the odds. Signs of age were a part of surviving. You died young or grew old. Growing old seemed much more preferable to him, especially given how many of his friends had never had a chance to do so. He let the silence drift, his thoughts turning to Severus kneeling on the floor at his feet.

"I know what he promised her," Harry said suddenly, breaking their peaceful silence. It was not something he admitted often, and not a topic he had ever spoken of with anyone. That the first one he would even hint at his inner turmoil to was Draco surprised him, but in a way it made the most sense. Draco had not been his friend at first, so maybe the distance that he felt, even though it was imagined, was in some way a help. Outside he could hear birdsong and the rustle of the wind in the trees, blowing the autumn chill into the kitchen much in the same way the solemn nature of pieces of their conversation had chilled his heart.

Draco was looking at him thoughtfully, and Harry felt like a microbe under a microscope. He could feel Draco's contemplations, the way he was wondering.

"Not quite as simple as loyalty or protection?" Draco asked carefully, the subtlety showing the sharp mind that had been Voldemort's General.

Harry sighed, playing with a custard cream but not eating it.

"I don't know," he said, "I still don't know how I feel about it. I don't know if I'll ever be able to understand…"

Draco was looking at him almost hopefully, his expression carefully not showing anything but gentle, neutral encouragement.

"I'm not telling you," Harry said firmly, "It's between me and him. I realise that now. And maybe it'll never be quite alright, but it's something I have to face eventually. Would a magical promise still be binding even now? But I don't even know if it was an Unbreakable Vow or not. I don't know what it means to him and I don't ever want to have to ask,"

"Hey," Draco said, a concerned frown creasing his face, clearly lost but still trying, "I… I don't know what to say but I know that he loves you if that helps? Or that we all care? Or…?" he trailed off as he realised that his words if anything seemed to be causing Harry more distress.

Across the table from each other they drank their tea, the silence tentative and heavy. Harry struggled inside his mind, searching for something to say to break it. He had raised the issue, had broached the subject and then shied away from it sharply. His eyes once again found the issue of New Scientist that Draco had cheerfully indicated.

"So I guess this is the kind of thing you won't be reading," he asked, tapping his fingers thoughtfully against the magazine cover, drawing Draco's attention back to muggle politics rather than the complexities of secret promises made decades ago.

"I'll probably read it when I get back home," Draco shrugged, "Hermione subscribes and I've got in the habit of flicking through it too. It's interesting to know. Useful,"

There was a moment of silence, before Draco continued, his voice strangely serious, "Sometimes I worry that Hermione believes science will solve everything. That she's just replaced magic with science. Magic couldn't solve everything, neither can science,"

Harry frowned at him, saying nothing to let him speak freely even if it wasn't completely fluently.

"Magic could be used for some amazing things. It could cure diseases and injuries that muggle science still can't. It could do so much good. But it could also kill, maim and destroy. It could be used for so much bad. It was used for some dreadful things, though we thought they were really quite normal. Isn't it just the same with muggle science. It's amazing. We have pictures of parts of the solar system, they've found the Higgs boson, so many diseases have been eradicated. But we also have the threat of nuclear war due to science. Chemical weapons. It's so easy to use science to hurt people. It's just like magic, no better than the people that have control. And I'm not sure if the muggles are any more worthy of that kind of responsibility than we were,"

Harry nodded, honoured to be allowed to shared in the more serious nature that Draco rarely indulged in, but also a little sad to face the melancholy within both of them rather than the lighthearted prattle that they could have stuck to. He found that he had nothing to respond with, silently draining his mug.

"And you'll be back next month," Harry commented as Draco too finished his cup, taking it along with the mug to rinse out with water and place by the sink to be washed later.

"Like we do every month, like we've done for years," Draco smiled, leaving their conversation behind to focus on their daily realities, "Occasionally they'll come down but our place is smaller. Plus, neither Severus nor Luna can drive. Severus for fairly obvious reasons, and lovely as Luna is I'm not sure I'd want her to be in control of a moving vehicle. Luckily she appears to agree with this assessment. But that means that Ginny has to do all the driving and of course Luna doesn't like being in a confined space for long, so Severus has to look after her and they have to both not distract Ginny while she's driving. Plus of course they need plenty of stops so it's a bit of a hassle. But for us a weekend in the Lakes is much more manageable,"

He looked thoughtfully at Harry before adding, "You should learn to drive. I'm sure it'd help Ginny,"

For a moment Harry though he was going to add something more, but nothing more was forthcoming. He wondered if there had been a joke that Draco had considered to be in potential bad taste after their more serious conversation.

"I can drive," Harry objected, faintly petulantly, "I have a driving licence. I learnt in Japan,"

Draco seemed surprised by this, so Harry continued with and indignant, "I'll show you, you git," though the insult had no malice to it.

"I don't need to see," Draco said with a laugh, "But can you even use that here? Did you actually drive in Japan? Or did you just pass your test and never go near a steering wheel again?"

Harry pursed his lips in amused resignation, "I can use it here, I think. But I didn't really drive much in Japan. I haven't really driven in about four years…"

"Oh lord…" Draco responded, which was probably a rather accurate assessment of Harry's confidence in his own driving.

That night after Draco and Hermione had left, for the first time in a long time, Harry finally did something he had been wanting to do for years. He'd agonised over it every night he'd gone to sleep since arriving at the house, lying awake at night resisting temptation, conflicted over his feelings and uncertain of the sincerity of his potential welcome. Drawing back the covers, he withdrew from the warm comfort of the bed, slipping on his slippers and considering his dressing gown. He decided against it, despite the slight chill. The cold would prompt him to act rather than hesitating, he hoped. His glasses he left on his bedside table, choosing to navigate the darkened house through blurred shadows.

He padded along the landing, past Ginny and Luna's bedroom door, past the rarely entered room where they kept old mementos of their shared magical past, down the stairs. He was by now familiar with the creaky floorboards and steps, but still not accustomed enough to avoid them all. He didn't care though, if anyone heard him creep around at night. The phase of his life, that had overshadowed most of his existence, when he'd obsessed over the need to move silently due to enemies lurking in every corner, was long gone. He knew that Ginny and Luna might hear him, might be woken and tense up as he still sometimes did when he heard an unexpected sound in the dark, but he also knew that they would go back to sleep. They had each other, they were comfortable in their home. To them the creaks were no doubt familiar and by now they would be accustomed to sounds of him moving at night. As he headed down the stairs to the hallway, he wondered if Severus could hear the creaks and moans of the house, if he was still awake, if he was lonely.

He stood outside his bedroom door, staring at the whitewashed wood in the dark. He could feel the chill of the night air seeping into him, freezing him internally, caressing his bones. He hesitated, as he knew he would, torn. He considered knocking, dismissing that alternative immediately. For some reason, that was the least appealing option. A part of him was tempted to turn around, return up the stairs to his warm bed, as he had done more than once since his arrival. But a stronger part of him, the part that had faced Voldemort multiple times without flinching, that part held him in place. This was the part of him that had remained calm and collected during an earthquake. This was the part of him that had resolutely destroyed an entire world. This was the part of him that kept on pushing forward despite the demons he now carried with him, the part of him that made up his core. He was brave, brave beyond belief, and his bravery compelled him onwards.

He opened the door, the hinges creaking slightly, knowing that Severus's door had never truly been closed to him. It had never been that way in the past, so now Harry chose to continue as if there had been no interruption, as if he had never left. Afraid both that this may have changed and also that nothing would have changed, not sure which option he wanted the most. Confused even in his own mind if being welcomed or rejected would hurt more.

He crossed the threshold, grateful for the moonlight spilling in through the windows without curtains, lighting the sparse room with its eerie, mystical light. Slowly, careful of his footing, he made his way to the bed. The colours of the room seemed to be grey in the darkness, though whether that was the case or a trick of the light Harry couldn't tell. He had never associated Severus with colour, unless black counted. Even now, amongst the reddening leaves of the Lake District, Severus seemed to belong to a different colour scheme, one that suited the night, filled with deep shadows and fluttering bats.

He stood over the bed, gazing at the figure in it. His night vision, even had he chosen to wear his glasses, was not good enough to distinguish clearly the expression on Severus's face, or even confirm for certain if he was awake or asleep. He could hear his breathing, steady and combining with his own as the only sounds in the room. For as long as Harry stood there, locked in place, it felt like there was nothing in the world beyond the room and their breaths.

Then, he moved, climbing under the covers into the bed. He could still feel the slight chill of the autumn night air clinging to his flesh, coming into contact with the cozy warmth of an occupied bed, the two temperatures doing battle with each other and eliciting a shiver from Harry.

"It's been a while," Severus said, his voice calm and richly velvet, giving Harry no indication of how long he had been awake for, if he had woken him or not. As always there was little to indicate exactly what Severus was thinking, what he felt.

Harry lay there, close but as always, not touching.

"I missed you," Harry admitted into the darkness, feeling the chasm between them that had always existed, the depth of feeling and the uncrossable distance. He had spent many nights in Severus's bed, so close and seemingly intimate, but so clearly separated, never once touching.

"You will always be welcome," Severus said, as he had said many times before, "My door, my bed, my heart. Nothing is closed to you. Ask and you will receive. I can deny you nothing,"

"I know," Harry said heavily. They lay in silence, one that was both comfortable and awkward, a tangled knot of understanding twisting between them. Harry felt the reassurance of unchangeable nostalgia as he felt the piercing pain of responsibility tearing through his mind. The uncertainty mixed with certainty, one and the same.

"Severus," he asked, "You know it's wrong, right?"

"Wrong?" came the curious response, the familiar voice caressing the word gently as if it was foreign and newly encountered.

"Strange. Incomprehensible. Unusual. It's not something you can promise. It's not something you should be able to promise," Harry tried, attempting to express himself, knowing all the while that he would never be able to fully put it into words.

Severus remained silent for a while. Harry felt the tension within his body increasing as he wondered what Severus was thinking, what he was feeling, whether he would reply. He regretted speaking, voicing his uncertainty.

"You have to understand, I know no other way," Severus said slowly, "Maybe it is strange to you, but I don't think I can change it now,"


	6. November 1989

Petunia opened the door to the cupboard under the stairs yet again, as she had countless times before in the evening, unable to leave it be. She never closed it fully, always leaving it ajar, always returning moments later to check on her nephew. He was curled up miserably amongst the blankets, fretfully clutching Dudley's old and worn yellow elephant, but thankfully asleep now. She could feel tears pricking at the backs of her eyes, the tears that had threatened to fall all day, the struggle growing harder as the evening had worn on. It was Vernon's comforting hand on her shoulder, softly providing his support, that lead to them finally falling, her vision of the sleeping boy blurring as she turned away and buried her face in her husbands chest. Quietly, he held her, rubbing her back gently until her sniffles were under control.

"It's a good question, though," he said quietly in her hair, careful not to disturb Harry, "But do we know the answer?"

Petunia turned to look again at her nephew with a heavy heart. Vernon combed his fingers through her hair, and gave her a gentle push towards the kitchen.

"I'll put him to bed," he said, "You make us a herb tea,"

She followed his directions, filling the kettle and putting it on as he painstakingly positioned himself in the cupboard doorway so he could scoop Harry into his arms. Harry shifted restlessly, but with a practised ease Vernon shushed him softly. He knew from experience that he had to take it slow and tonight more than ever it was vitally important that Harry was not awakened. Petunia withdrew two mugs from the kitchen cupboard, watching with a tearful smile as he carried the sleeping boy carefully up the stairs. She tossed in chamomile tea bags and poured on the hot water as he walked along the landing, taking care to not jostle Harry. Finally reaching Harry's bedroom, he softly placed him into his bed, drawing up the covers to keep the boy and his yellow elephant warm. Thankfully, Harry remained asleep, undoubtably as exhausted from the evening of crying as Vernon and Petunia were. Leaving him sleeping, not even daring to brush a kiss to his forehead in case the scratch of his moustache disturbed Harry's slumber, Vernon returned to his wife in the kitchen.

The worst day of Petunia's life had begun the morning she opened the door that fateful autumn day years ago to discover her baby nephew abandoned on their doorstep, cold and shivering. She had broken down in hysterics, terrified as she and Vernon had frantically tried to warm him. Dudley, only a toddler at the time, had been confused and scared as they left him with their neighbours and rushed to the hospital for medical help. Petunia had often wondered if it was the effect of that day, even if Dudley couldn't remember it, that had meant he took protecting his younger cousin so seriously. It had been a constant relief, once Harry had been given the all-clear and they'd been able to bring him home, that Dudley and he had grown up so close. They looked nothing alike, with Dudley being big and blonde and Harry small and dark, and their personalities were just as dissimilar, but they were closer than brothers.

Just as Dudley had been overprotective of his young cousin, Harry had followed Dudley everywhere he could with wide, adoring eyes. Harry's favourite soft toy, the yellow elephant, had originally been Dudley's but he'd given it to Harry on the very first day when his parents had returned home. They had bought him toys since then, but he'd always preferred the yellow elephant and once he'd realised that it had once been Dudley's favourite given to him for protection before he had any toys of his own, his preference had been cemented.

Petunia sighed, sitting on the stool at the breakfast bar, wrapping her hands round the warm mug. Vernon leaned against the counter by the sink, inhaling the comforting aroma of chamomile. Both boys had grown up, Harry's health luckily not having suffered despite having spent a night on their doorstep as a baby, and now Dudley had started at secondary school and was on his first school trip away from home. She was sure that he was having a great time in France with the rest of his year, and knew without having to be told that he would be carefully choosing a souvenir for Harry. She knew that undoubtably he would put far more thought into that gift than anything he hurriedly bought her and Vernon, and it warmed her heart. Watching Harry's misery at being left behind first in primary school and then in England was heartbreaking. She and Vernon had suspected that he was being bullied, though whether that was something that had gotten worse now that Dudley was no longer at his school to provide protection or something that had only recently started they didn't know.

He was an unusual child, it was true, though a loving one. The scar on his neck, a hideous mess that had alarmed the doctors and proved to be entirely permanent, was another possible reason that they had sadly thought of. Now with Dudley no longer just at a different school but in another country, no matter how much they had reassured him that the week would be over soon, Harry had retreated to the safety of the cupboard under the stairs that he and Dudley had used as their den years ago to cry himself to sleep after an evening of tearfully asking his aunt and uncle when he would get to go to the same school as his cousin again, desperate for their reassurance that he would end up at the same secondary school, unaware that it was a question that Petunia and Vernon, for all their comforting words, couldn't answer.

"How can we know?" Vernon asked, "If he'll go to school here or…?"

"Or there…" Petunia finished sadly. She sipped at her tea, letting the familiar taste soothe her.

"I don't know," she said, "A letter comes in the summer, but that leaves no time to prepare. We knew earlier though because…" she trailed off thoughtfully.

Vernon cradled his herb tea, letting her cast her mind back to her childhood, patiently waiting. He knew enough to know that the memories were painful to her.

"I don't know," she repeated, "But I know who will know - Severus,"

"Lily's friend?" Vernon asked, the strange name vaguely familiar from Petunia's stories of her youth.

Petunia paused, considering, "No, I wouldn't call them friends," she said slowly, "I wouldn't like to call that friendship," she admitted.

"How can we contact him?" Vernon said, focusing on the most important task ahead of them, "Do you know his address? Does he have a phone number?"

Petunia drank her tea, giving him a slightly embarrassed smile, "I think I know how, but it might sound a bit crazy…" she said. He waited curiously, and she inhaled with determination.

"Tell any bats you encounter that Petunia wants to speak to Severus," she said with a slight laugh. He gave her a faintly alarmed look, but she just shook her head in acknowledgement of how strange it sounded.

"He always had a way with bats, he was a strange boy, so if we get word to the bats they'll pass on the message. All we have to do is hope that he remembers who I am. Maybe saying Lily's sister wants to talk to Severus would be better…" she paused, thinking of her sister, "Assuming he's still alive, that is…"

That was why Vernon chose to take the small compost pot of tea leaves and other scraps to the compost heap at the end of the garden late that night. He had never really given much thought to whether or not their garden or the surrounding area had bats or not but there was definitely wildlife rustling at night. Feeling faintly insane, he muttered "Petunia wants to speak to Severus, Lily's sister wants to speak to Severus," as he walked up the lawn close to the trees that ran along the edge. It was a phrase he found himself repeating after dark the next two nights as well, making the extra effort to wander out towards the fields past their street in the hope of finding more bats, convinced that he was acting like a lunatic but desperate with the hope that Petunia was right and that somehow they would be able to receive some assistance from the mysterious Severus.

After three such nights, when they were once again drinking herb tea in the kitchen after Vernon had relocated a sleeping Harry from his nest in the cupboard under the stairs to his bed, yellow elephant firmly clutched in his arms, there came a knock on the door. It was late for a visitor, though they were both relieved that their guest had chosen to knock gently rather than ring the doorbell as that would undoubtably woken Harry. Petunia went to the door, with Vernon following her to the hallway, neither of them voicing their hope that their message to the bats might have worked. Neither of them entirely certain that it was anything but wishful thinking.

She opened the door, to find nothing but their dark and empty driveway. The gate was closed, and she could hear nothing but the normal sounds of the neighbourhood at night, giving no indication of if they had misheard or if it had been some teenagers playing a mischievous prank on them. She looked around, seeing nothing but the normal shadows fluttering in the light cast from their hall and the streetlamp by their gate. With a frustrated sigh she closed the door and turned round, nearly collapsing with shock as she did so.

In the middle of their hallway, standing at the foot of the stairs in silence, was a man. It was as if he had materialised out of nowhere, as if by magic. She realised, gasping for breath as she tried to recover her sense of equilibrium, hand clutching at her chest in fear, that it must be magic. Behind the dark spectre she could see Vernon's equally shocked expression from the kitchen door. She had never met the man before her as a man, but she recognised him anyway. His features had the same quality they had had as children, the same unnaturally black hair and eyes, the same expressionless face. The most obvious clue that told her without a hint of a doubt was the cloud of bats that swirled around him almost as if they were a living cloak.

"Severus," she gasped, her legs trembling as she tried to stand from where she had half-fallen in the porch amongst the family's shoes, "You scared me,"

Severus didn't answer immediately, gazing blankly at her with eyes she knew were unseeing, before saying blandly, "I thought you might prefer not to have me on your doorstep, I might draw attention,"

Petunia didn't bother mentioning that given that their driveway wasn't entirely visible from the road he would probably have been safe from curious eyes, especially so late at night, but she understood the reasoning. Men covered in bats were not common in Lancaster, or indeed anywhere. It was true that as children he had drawn stares for his odd appearance even when surrounded by only a minimal number of bats. Vernon was watching the two of them carefully, his eyes wide. For all that he'd known about Lily being a witch and the fact that he'd met her on a handful of occasions, he had never witnessed magic or met Severus before.

"You wanted to speak with me?" Severus continued, his voice having changed from the sing-song whisper she remembered to a hypnotically deep monotone.

"Ye…yes," Petunia said hesitantly, considering moving past him towards the kitchen, uncomfortable in his presence. He seemed to suck the light out of the house, almost as if his arrival had plunged the whole world into darkness. The bats fluttered around him, and she could see some of them clinging to his hair and clothes, their black wriggling bodies blending seamlessly with the black of his robes.

"Come through to the living room," she instructed him firmly, unwilling to have a serious conversation at the bottom of the stairs where there was a chance of disturbing Harry, but not wanting his ominous presence in the cozy and familiar kitchen that served as the heart of the family home.

Passively, he followed her, sitting obediently in the armchair she indicated for him. The bats, to her relief, didn't appear to touch the furniture but rather stuck to him like a second skin. Vernon was struggling not to stare at him, and she could understand his reaction. There was a perverse sense of fascination in everything about Severus. He simply didn't belong in their world and he never had.

Now that he was there, in front of them and in their living room, an aberration in their reality, Petunia found the words for the questions she so desperately needed to ask him wouldn't come. Vernon, however, managed to speak up in an uncertain but determined voice.

"It's about Harry, Lily's son," he said, "We wanted to know, will he be taken away to Hogwarts?"

Severus seemed to consider Vernon for a moment, his face showing no feelings or reactions. He was as impassive as he had always been, the only movement or hint of life coming from the bats that covered him.

"He will," Severus answered dully, the monotone leaving no room for any doubt.

Petunia closed her eyes in grief at the confirmation she had been dreading, unable to stop the tears from falling. Vernon moved closer to her, sitting beside her on the sofa and drawing her close. Severus didn't react, either to his own statement or to her reaction. Vernon wondered if that would be it, if Severus would simply leave after having answered their question, vanish in a cloud of bats much like he'd appeared, but after a few moments of Petunia's sobbing he spoke again, this time with a faint hint of emotion in his voice. It was not enough emotion to be detectable as any one in particular, and even judging it as emotion was generous, but there was something slightly different.

"There was a prophecy," he said, "Harry was named and marked as the one chosen. He is the one who will end the wars. He will go to Hogwarts,"

"A prophecy?" Vernon asked, lost in an uncertain and foreign world, "Are those reliable? It's absolutely certain that it's Harry?" He held on to the faint, feeble hope that it might not be, that magical prophecies were as unreliable as reading the horoscope in the papers, but Severus shattered his hope with his calm answer.

"I've heard them, all three," he said, "For one she gripped my hand as she spoke and her words were the truth. There is no doubt, Harry is the only one who matches," The bats around him rustled, fluttering in distress, almost as if remembering the prophecy. Petunia wasn't certain if that was just her imagination, a strange piece of wishful thinking to give the bats a greater emotional depth than the man, but that was the impression she held on to.

"She?" Petunia asked through her tears, her voice trembling.

"Sybil Trelawny," Severus answered in the same calm monotone, either oblivious or uncaring of their emotional reaction to his words, "A Seer. She was my student at the time,"

"So there's nothing for it?" Vernon asked, trying to hope despite everything, "Harry will definitely be taken to Hogwarts? He'll… he'll be dragged into your war…? He's… he's only a child…"

One again the bats rustles, this time more visibly with a few flying around the living room. Both Vernon and Petunia flinched at the sudden seeming increase in darkness in the room, the ominous threat of power, but it did not last long. The bats settled, doing no more than crawl over Severus in their apparent agitation. He gave no reply, as if he had not even registered Vernon's question or distress, which was in itself an answer. Harry would receive his Hogwarts letter and they would have no choice but to wave goodbye to him as he was swept away by magic. Petunia felt her heart clench, the memories of Lily boarding the train assaulting her. The first time when she had still been her sister, excited for the magic that lay ahead, and the last time when she had been a complete stranger, a cruel woman eager for war. The hardest part was knowing that she was helpless. She knew, vaguely, that they couldn't resist the authorities. She knew that if she asked, Severus would be able to tell her what happened to those that tried to leave, those that tried to keep their magical children from the magical world of Hogwarts. But she knew that she would not be able to bear him recanting emotionlessly the consequences when she knew he and his family had paid that very price.

Clutching at Vernon's hand as though it was the only thing anchoring her in the world, Petunia said shakily, "Thank you, I understand,"

Though that signalled the end of their conversation, Severus made no move to leave. He closed his eyes briefly, eerily calm and still amongst the writhing mass of small dark bodies. When he opened them again, he seemed to have a touch of melancholy to him, though maybe that was to do with the way the living room lights lit up the bats.

"May I see him?" he asked, to Petunia's surprise. On the one hand, she felt uncomfortable with the idea of allowing this strange man to look in on her sleeping nephew, but on the other hand she was painfully aware that if he wanted to he could easily overpower them all with little effort. That he sat still and patient, asking politely for their permission, was merely an act, a generous consideration shown towards them possibly through boredom or possibly some vague remembered kindness of their childhood together. How he would see Harry she didn't quite understand, she never had, but she knew that through the magic he wrapped around himself and suffused with his bats he would see Harry in a way she couldn't comprehend. She shared a quick, worried look with Vernon before she answered, knowing that it was up to her not him to accept.

"Yes, I'll show you," she said, "But he's sleeping, please… don't wake him,"

Severus rose, a fluid movement of cascading black wings, a sharp nod of affirmation almost hidden by the dark halo surrounding him. Nervous and intimidated, she hurriedly led him up the stairs towards Harry's room. Cautiously she pushed the door, left ajar as always, so that it was fully open and allowed him to enter. The light she left off, aware that it made no difference to him. The light from the landing cast dark shadows around Severus as he seemed to expand, the bats filling the room, their small wings scattering shadows around like black magic. He was silent, and Petunia imagined there to be no expression on his face. Had there been, she would not have seen it anyway, his face hidden by the darkness of the night, the fluttering shadows he carried with him and the eternal veil of black hair.

She waited, hovering hesitantly in the doorway, afraid and uncertain, full of dread. She didn't trust magic, she couldn't. She didn't believe that Severus would mean any harm to Lily's son, she couldn't believe it from what she had known of him. But at the same time, he belonged to another world, and Lily was long dead. She had no knowledge of where his life had taken him, where his loyalties lay, what he truly thought about anything. She never really had. He was simply the only person with magic she knew, the only one she could reach out to. All she could do was to hope that their childhood together, his loyalty to Lily, would translate to some kind of affection towards her family, though it was entirely possible that Lily's son meant nothing to him. That he regarded her with the same disinterest she might regard a brick.

Vernon watched them both, his face concerned. He understood little of magic, letting her with her greater experience take the lead. He would no doubt have more questions, just as he had when she first tried to explain to him about Lily, but once again she knew she would never be able to truly put it all into words. She knew only the very basics, what little she had been told officially and what scraps she had gleaned from Lily and Severus. She had been too young to really understand it then, too young to stand a chance of piecing together the fractured fragments of information. Now she felt the depth of her ignorance, the way in which there was so much she simply didn't know, could never know.

She dreaded explaining to Dudley when the time came, that Harry would be leaving. That he might never return, and that maybe it would be better that way. She dreaded him experiencing the same devastation she had as Lily had left, had ceased to be her sister with such ease, had died. She didn't know what the wars that consumed the wizarding world were about, she just knew that they touched everyone magical in some way. Harry had already been touched by wizarding war, been left orphaned and scarred. She had never received any closure, never been unable to discover the details of Lily and James's deaths.

She felt for a moment almost as if the entire world was changing, warping, but then that passed and whatever pressure she had felt left. The darkness in Harry's room seemed to lessen, and Severus silently exited. He walked smoothly down the stairs, leaving her and Vernon scurrying in his wake. The bats trailed after him, forming a sentient cloak that billowed out as he moved. At the foot of their stairs, he turned to face them, a gesture that Petunia knew from her girlhood was entirely for their benefit not his own. To him it made no difference what direction he faced, he could both see nothing and everything whatever he did. He observed them, in ways they could not comprehend but could feel pricking at their skin, digging into their minds.

"I'll watch over him," he said, and Petunia felt a wave of relief wash over her. It wasn't a lot, and the idea of being watched over by such an ominous presence was fearful, but any form of protection for Harry was better than nothing.

"Thank you," she said, her voice trembling, knowing that he wasn't giving the reassurance for them, but for either Lily or Harry. Which it was she had no way of knowing, she just accepted that it was enough for her. She suspected that she would be noticing bats around the neighbourhood more often now. He could have been watching the house all this time and she would have been none the wiser, but now she would be seeing them in every shadow whether they were there or not. It was both a threat and a protection, a reminder of the perils that lurked in the future and a promise of shelter.

"There's nothing more?" he asked, and there was nothing that either she nor Vernon had to say. They shook their heads wordlessly, a gesture that he shouldn't have been able to see yet at the same time clearly did.

The bats swarmed, and for a moment they lost sight of the man in the midst of them. Then, the bats seemed to dwindle in number, dissipating into nothing, leaving an empty hallway. They stood frozen, shocked by the suddenness of his departure, but at the same time deep in the back of their minds they could not be surprised that he had chosen magic over walking out of their front door.

Recovering her sense, Petunia headed towards the kitchen on autopilot to make a calming herb tea for the second time that night. She stopped as she walked through the spot where Severus had stood moments before. There was something strange about standing on the ground where magic had just been performed, where someone had vanished into thin air. She looked at the cupboard under the stairs, the door covered in the familiar pictures of animals. Dudley and Harry had used it as their den when they were young. It had been their warren when they were playing pretend during their Watership Down phase. Dudley had been Hazel, the fearless and charismatic leader who did everything he could to protect his younger brother. Harry had been Fiver, the strange runt of the litter capable of seeing the future. Petunia had let them, but their innocent choice of their roles had chilled her heart. She had forgotten it, as they had grown up and left behind that game, in part because she and Vernon had given in to their pleading for a pet rabbit.

"Has he always been like that?" Vernon asked curiously, his voice cutting through the silence of her nostalgia to bring her back to the present. She turned her attention to him, considering Severus and his question.

"The bats?" she said, "Yes. The rest of it…?" she found herself falling down a rabbit hole of memories, thinking back to a time that felt so distant it seemed to be tinged with sepia, long before she'd ever heard the word Hogwarts.

"No," she said heavily, "No. He used to be such a sweet child,"


	7. November 2017

I would like to continue to remind you that, while there is nothing graphic, there are some unsavoury topics covered throughout this story. These themes include: rape, mass murder, terrorism, paedophilia, bestiality, cannibalism, necrophilia, incest.

Thank you for still taking time out of your day to read this, let alone those who go as far as actually commenting, it's very kind of you.

...

Harry had always been prone to maudlin in the autumn. The time surrounding Hallowe'en was particularly hard. The way the days grew shorter and the nights longer, coating everything in a permanent state of darkness affected some people, drawing their moods downwards. Dark thoughts seemed more natural during long, dark nights. The way the weather became more grey and gloomy, the coldness of the coming winter seeping into his very bones. Even knowing that dawn would break just as surely as spring would eventually come, couldn't alleviate the melancholy he felt.

There was more to it, than just the weather. Autumn had its place in the seasons, just as night had its place in the day. But Hallowe'en for Harry was an anniversary, the anniversary of the night his mother had been murdered by Voldemort. The anniversary of the night he had been orphaned and left on the Dursley's doorstep. The anniversary of the night that Voldemort had marked him, singled him out and ensured he would never lead a normal life. It was a solitary sorrow, one that no one else in the world could truly understand, though there were moments when he thought Severus must at least share his grief in some manner. He could still remember the fleeting impressions of that Hallowe'en night, the echoing words, "Stand aside you foolish girl," filling his dreams as the nights darkened.

Of course, the whole world outside his head was indifferent and entirely ignorant of the significance the season held for him. He couldn't blame them for that. To the wizarding world, Hallowe'en had been a night for celebration. Not only was it a night with magical significance for a great number of rites, but it was the night when Harry had been anointed and as such was a cause for celebration for many, especially those that gathered at Hogwarts. To the modern muggle world it was just a silly holiday for embracing the gothic. Skeletons and ghosts, witches and wizards, all sorts of spooky decorations were available everywhere and displayed cheerfully. Harry hated shopping in October, hated the reminder, the relief once it was over and the decorations changed was immeasurable. The magical aspect only served to heighten what he'd lost, and at the same time forcing him to face the truth. He hadn't lost his magic, he had consciously made the decision and performed the act that not only tore away his own magic but did the same to everyone. So many, a countless number he could never bear to consider counting, were presumably buried, their bones deep beneath the earth in the spots where magic had swallowed the buildings bound by spells. It brought back the grief of the consequences of the final battle, just as much as it brought back the grief of his parents' deaths. It brought back his grievances of the fate that had directed his life, as well as the bitter knowledge that he hadn't truly been an innocent victim.

It was easy here, though. Much easier than it had been for a long time. The house was isolated and none of the occupants had much interest in socialising outside of the small group of survivors. No decorations had gone up. The only hint of decoration that could be mistaken for anything to do with Hallowe'en were the black paper bats that covered the walls and ceiling of Severus's room, but they were there all year round. They were Luna's handiwork, though Harry had no idea if she'd asked Severus if he wanted his room covered in paper bats. In a way, Harry imagined that he would simply shrug and point out in his maddeningly matter-of-fact manner that it wasn't like he could see them. The bats hadn't been made specifically for the room, but rather for Draco and Hermione's wedding years ago. Harry assumed that they hadn't at any point requested large cardboard bats to be used as confetti, but Luna had devoted a considerable amount of time and effort to cutting them out. She had poured her whole being into it, and it had seemed to bring her a degree of lucidity that had been lacking.

The wedding had been a quiet affair. Harry had been back in the country, briefly. He had attended, one of the very few guests. Neither of them had family remaining that they could invite, and the need to explain why they had no relatives was a reason that prevented them making other friends that might have been invited. As it was, neither of them had intended for it to be anything more than a simple signing of documents. That was in many ways a relief, as a more elaborate or planned wedding would presumably have struggled to include Luna's black paper bats. Being of thin cardboard rather than confetti paper, they hadn't drifted downwards in a particularly romantic manner. Harry had, like all the scarce guests, helped with throwing them over the couple. For any other wedding he might have thought of them as the happy couple, but it wasn't a happy wedding. It wasn't a sad wedding. It just was, much in the same way that Draco and Hermione just were. Afterwards, Luna had carefully scurried round carefully salvaging the bats to take home.

Harry rather liked that they had found a new home on Severus's walls. It added atmosphere to the room. It was definitely unique, which he felt suited Severus to a T. He might look and seem far more normal now, almost human, but Harry would never be able to shake his early impressions. He knew, beneath the surface, Severus was still the same person. It had just always been buried very deep down. For many years he had hidden himself with a fluttering cloak of bats, now his oddities lay hidden behind a relaxed air of normality. It seemed to Harry that he cared now for a select few people, an increase on the sparse list it had once been, but as always he had no interest in anyone outside of that tiny circle. No one else would ever find their way into knowing him as he truly was, a secret Harry doubted he himself even knew the whole of.

Aside from the bats, Severus's room was sparsely decorated. He had never had much interest in his environment, and that had not changed with the years. Colour had always meant nothing to him. Everything was organised for practicality, with an element of comfort considered. From what Harry could tell, the room was more geared towards comfort than the rooms he had remembered Severus occupying in Hogwarts. The times had changed, the situation was different. They were all older and living in peace now. Each day continued as the last, time moving forward in a slow and abstract manner, days and dates blending into each other. The sun rose and set. At times Harry could almost forget that the world outside their little bubble even existed. They still had to go shopping occasionally, to buy food mostly, but even that was a rare trip into society. Ginny tended to order things online anyway, further reducing any human interaction, though Harry was becoming familiar with the various locals from whom Luna tended to acquire a wide variety of things from duck eggs to honey on her regular walks around the hills.

The whole house smelt glorious. It often did smell of something delicious or homely, rich and complex aromas drifting through the rooms and permeating the atmosphere with a calm warmth. Now that it was autumn Ginny no longer baked her cakes for the teashop in the village, so she and Severus had switched over to making soaps and shampoos seamlessly as they did every year. Those were also sold in the village shops, as well as through the small website Ginny curated. Despite the weather, Luna still went out most days. Some days she returned home soaked to the skin and shivering. When the weather was good, Harry joined the others in a walk after lunch, familiarising himself once more with the bleakly beautiful slopes of the hills and the rich scents of nature. Mostly, Harry sat in the kitchen at the table, his laptop open as Severus and Ginny mixed their herbs, spices and other ingredients. He was sensible enough to know it was best not to help. He just enjoyed the calm comfort of being in the same space as them, watching them work together. He had always enjoyed watching Severus brew potions, years ago in a time and place that seemed to be a life that belonged to another person. Ginny had sent him a number of their products over the years, whenever he'd had a permanent address, and the scents had always transported him back to better times in his mind.

So around him they had performed acts that may as well be magic to Harry, complicated recipes made by Severus's intuition and Ginny's precision. He'd never seen Severus measure anything, and had always assumed it to be simply one of his many magical talents, but now he was changing that assumption to the realisation that it must be an innate talent beyond magic. Now, however, he no longer handled the more dangerous or delicate ingredients, mixing instead the scents. Harry, who would always admit that in many ways he hadn't applied himself to his studies as much as he maybe should have during his time at Hogwarts, had never been good at remembering the properties of herbs or any kind of ingredients. All he knew was that clearly some of the ingredients he had assumed to be aesthetic had some properties that transcended magic, as Severus and Ginny continued to use them to great effect.

It was a pleasant background hum as he translated, a freelance job that he was doing at least temporarily. He had enough contacts to get work. Whether or not he would continue he didn't know yet, merely that it was convenient. He had rather enjoyed teaching, though it had also made him marvel at times at Severus's patience, but he wasn't sure if it was practical here in the middle of nowhere. He also doubted he had the correct qualifications or skills for British laws. Maybe allowing himself to be secluded away from the rest of society, seeing few other people and working alone through his laptop was not ideal, but for Harry in the here and now it was acceptable. It meant at least that he could avoid any unnecessary exposure to Hallowe'en, which was difficult when teaching children.

Once the mixing was finished, they joined him at the table, waiting first for the kettle to boil and then for the tea to brew. Almost as if summoned by the click of the kettle, Luna materialised bearing an assortment of fireworks and straw that she spilt over the table in favour of holding a delicate Studio Ghibli mug full of tea. Harry had given her the mug years ago, carefully wrapping it up and posting it to her. That it was clearly her favourite mug touched his heart and made him glad. He still made an effort to never make any sudden moves or raise his voice near her, and was always careful to give her as much space as she needed. She was relaxing into his presence more and more, though she did still prefer to keep the table between them whenever they sat down together.

Rather than Hallowe'en, it was Bonfire Night that was the focus here. For Harry it brought back old, forgotten memories of his childhood before Hogwarts. He remembered, vaguely, Uncle Vernon teaching him and Dudley very sternly about checking bonfires for hedgehogs, as well as standing in their garden wrapped in a warm coat and woolly hat as the fire licked at the crackling branches of their bonfire. He remembered the firework show at the castle, and the way that he'd hated the loud bangs so much that Petunia had carried him home early, leaving Vernon and Dudley to watch without them. He became used to loud noises and explosions during the war.

"We're going to blow up Parliament," Luna said cheerfully, a hoarse sing-song of a voice, fiddling with the fireworks in a way that worried Harry slightly. She was arranging them into an order that didn't make sense to Harry, but as long as it did to Luna no one seemed to mind.

"Yes," Severus agreed, in a manner that Harry did not find particularly reassuring. He assumed that they were just going to set off the fireworks in the dark hillside, but a small part of him wouldn't put it part them to be intending to actually drive down to London as part of some deadly plot. It wasn't like they didn't know perfectly well how to make explosives, or indeed how best to deploy them. All three of Severus, Luna and Ginny had all been erratic and unpredictable in their own way during the war. Peace had not really change that.

"We'll burn everyone who ever hurt us," Ginny added, taking the straw that Luna had brought in with the fireworks and twisting it in her hands. Realistically, Harry knew that most people on that list were already dead. The only person he could think of off the top of his head who had hurt them and was still available for burning was him, but he assumed that she was talking metaphorically. He closed his laptop, finally abandoning his translation for the day, preferring instead to watch Ginny twist and tie the straw, realising that she was slowly shaping rough human figures to create a vague approximation of dolls. He assumed that they were to act as human effigies, to be burnt symbolically.

His concentration had drifted long before the kitchen filled with life, so he was glad to turn away from his screen. He'd been distracting himself from his work by reading news articles, all on the same topic, which he was glad to be torn from. They were merely making him sad, though despite the sorrow and horror he still felt a need to keep reading ever more. He should be numb to death and suffering, but he wasn't. Some days he was grateful that he could still feel. He was grateful to be surrounded by warmth and the living, even if they were all ghosts in their own way. Their bones were wrapt with still living flesh, and they continued onwards. He watched the dolls becoming more recognisable, mementos of a bitter past. In that way none of them were living for the future, caught up in the effects of their yesterdays.

"Still?" he asked her, a futile question he already knew the answer to. It was clear as it always had been, the evidence held in her hands. The faces were crude, but Harry knew as he would have known had they had no faces. Maybe had he known less he might have struggled to guess, but he had lived through her history to an extent, seeing glimpses of her life from the sidelines much as she had observed his. For a moment her expression was a hard one he had almost forgotten, and Harry was reminded that behind the rustic smiles there was a woman who had been a Death Eater. Even without seeing it, he knew that the Mark was still etched deep into her skin.

"I rebuilt myself," she started slowly, the whole kitchen unnaturally silent to catch her quiet words, "I rebuilt myself from the shattered, mangled remains of who I used to be. Twice. Twice I picked myself up from as good as dead, twice I removed all the traces of who I had been and recreated myself in a different image. Twice I survived,"

She wasn't looking at anyone, her eyes unfocused and staring past the effigy in her hands into a memory none of them could see. Harry knew that it was of Hogwarts, though he wasn't sure of the exact details. As he watched her face, full of melancholy, he remembered the way she had smiled with innocent delight the first time they'd met on the train platform. But more than that, he remembered the girl he'd found in the Chamber of Secrets. He liked to forget everything he'd seen there. He'd had a few nightmares, but eventually he'd been able to put it from his mind. As a child he had never given any thought to the fact that Ginny would likely have found it harder to recover, never wanting to give any deeper consideration to the Chamber and all of it's secrets, leaving them to rot in the bowels of the castle instead.

Now his skin crawled at the memory, resurfacing and rearing it's ugly head with a vengeance. It had been the smell that had lingered the longest. From the moment he had managed to open the Chamber of Secrets to the moment he had finally stripped off all his clothes and bathed after escaping its confines, the stench of rotting flesh had surrounded him. The few hours he had spent trekking through the sewers to where he had found Ginny before dragging her back through them to comparative freedom had been far longer than he would ever have wanted to spend breathing in the noxious smell. He had washed himself and his hair excessively afterwards and his clothes had been burnt, which had allowed him to finally feel free of it's lingering presence. Now, his mind already in the past, he distractedly wondered how long it had taken Ginny to finally feel clean. He wondered if she ever had. Given the way the smell had seemed to penetrate everything in his brief foray into the tangled passages, her endless days buried amongst the dead must have haunted her for longer.

She had been covered in blood and slime when he helped her from the Chamber of Secrets, pulling her naked from where he had found her, curled up in the rotting corpse of the basilisk. He had never questioned what she had eaten or drunk in her time there, deciding once again that he would rather not know for certain. It was one of the many things he had realised he preferred to remain ignorant about. If he thought hard he knew that in his heart of hearts he undoubtably knew so many of the answers, but he refrained, all the while wondering if that was a selfish decision.

The room drifted back to a comfortable silence, broken eventually by mundane, day-to-day conversation. The memories were left in the past, still haunting their present but laid to rest for the moment. The dolls were completed and the tea drunk. Slowly night fell, the darkness creeping after the sun set the sky alight with a blood-red dying blaze. They ate a light meal in the cozy warmth of the kitchen, a warmth that was more than just the temperature.

Together they walked up the garden, wrapped in warm clothes. Harry wore a woolly hat and a scarf. The cold often irritated his scar, so he liked to keep it protected from the chill as much as he could. Luna wore fluffy mauve earmuffs with cat ears, a present from Harry. She was probably too old in most people's minds to wear such silly earmuffs, but Harry thought they suited her. Luna had never cared much for the opinions of society, and now that she rarely ventured out into public beyond the safety of the hills of the village there was no reason for her not to enjoy herself.

Severus and Ginny both seemed to be unconcerned with the evening chill. Severus seemed more human now that he had before, an effect that Harry was sure was in part due to the lack of bats and in part due to the fact that he was now older. Yet he was still far from normal in many ways. The entirety of Harry's time as his student, Severus had always worn the same clothing no matter the weather, seemingly unbothered by any change in temperature. Now he did change his clothes visibly, and as the weather had cooled he had taken to wearing jumpers. But still it seemed to affect him less than it did either Harry or Luna. Ginny he had always assumed had picked up the resistance to the weather from her lengthy time as Severus's disciple, though he could not understand how something he had always assumed to be a magical affection had survived the loss of magic. Maybe Ginny too had always been relatively unaffected by the temperature, he had after all barely known her as a child.

Luna lit the newspaper with matches, and Harry watched as the fire took to the branches of the bonfire, building up in orange flames. Their light and heat, flickering and crackling before his eyes, transported him briefly to the Forbidden Forest as it burnt. Luna hadn't needed matches or kindling then. Dark shadows played across her face, cast by the bonfire as she gazed into the bright heat. The rich aroma of smoke filled Harry's lungs, scratching at his throat and making him cough a little. They'd all smell of bonfire, their clothes and bodies needing a wash, but for that moment Harry let himself forget the bad and indulge in the good.

Maybe it was because Luna had lit the bonfire, or that it was England, Harry didn't know, but it brought back memories that fire hadn't inspired in him for many years. Some were of cozy nights from his childhood. Some were watching his comrades burn to cinders. He wondered what Luna was thinking as she watched the flames licking the logs, caressing their way through the fuel. Her expression seemed sad, though not explicitly so. Pensive and resigned, as if she had made peace with the fire without ever fully forgiving it.

She thew a small amount of what Harry assumed was turpentine on the flames, making them flare up hungrily, ensuring that they grew to a proper bonfire. Harry couldn't help but flinch slightly at the suddenness, the sharp burst of fire filling his senses and for a second the trees behind the flames looked like the ones from his past rather than his present. The vibrant light of the fire glowed bright amongst the darkness of the evening, casting flickering hues of molten gold over the faces that were so dearly familiar to him. The house was isolated, far from any great metropolis, so the nights were a deep, untouched darkness. High in the sky, the stars were visible, millions of tiny sparks of light glowing in the empty blackness of the heavens above.

Those sparks were soon joined by bursts of colour as Ginny took the matches from Luna's grip and the fireworks one by one from Severus and Harry. Harry considered offering to help set them off, but he got the impression that his current position of holding the assorted fireworks and handing them over when required was adequate enough. He and Luna watched the small show Ginny gave them, both failing to restrain the slight jump at each explosion that showered the bright lights over their heads. Severus paid no attention to the proceedings, unable to see anything, just hearing the bangs like distant gunfire. The paltry display finished, they lit sparklers, with Severus once again paying no heed. Hesitantly, Harry found himself drawing ancient runes of protection, of healing and of love in the air. They meant nothing now, with no magic to back them up. Writing the kanji or even just the words would be as effective as the long dead runes now deprived of all their former power. Throughout all the sparklers, the bonfire continued to burn, growing from a small fire to a strong blaze that exuded glorious heat.

Once the bonfire was finally built to a good height, Ginny unceremoniously tossed the two straw dolls she had made into the flames. They tumbled in amongst the burning logs, catching fire. Harry found himself watching, almost vacantly, as they fell to pieces amongst the fire, losing track of time as he gazed blankly at the symbols of his past. He wondered absently if they made and burnt the same dolls every year. He had expected more ceremony, but in a way he felt that their treatment was fitting. In life they had both put a certain emphasis on ceremony, as all magic had, so maybe to deprive them of it was Ginny's ultimate revenge.

A life time could have passed as he watched the flames lick their remains, though it didn't. When he came back to himself, Severus seemed closer than he had before. Almost hidden by shadows, Ginny had an arm around Luna's shoulder, holding her close, red hair mingling with dirty blonde. Both of them were alive, despite everything, and for a moment Harry marvelled at that. His eyes stung with the smoke, the gentle wind regularly blowing it in his face as it changed direction. They stayed there, watching the fire slowly burn itself out. They were not unmoving or silent, conversation drifting softly amongst the smokey tendrils, the waning gibbous moon sailing high above them.


	8. April 2001

The maps, with their golden lines and constant moving figures, hovered in the air. Each one showed a different section of the country, of the magically significant locations. His mind was constantly working, analysing and considering not only what it was best for him to direct tactically but what it was likely Granger would be planning. It felt at times almost as if half his mind was constantly attempting to think like Granger so that he could counter her every move. He wondered if she was doing the same, eternally running an internal simulation of what it would be like to be him. He paced, restless, his eyes always returning to the figures that filled his dreams. He assumed that Granger too slept in short shifts, almost constantly alert and controlling her army just as he controlled his.

He had thought, at the tender age of eleven, that it was Potter he had to watch for, to monitor and always plan for, but he had since learnt his place. He knew his role now. What the leaders did was no longer his concern, except to make a note of their movements and account for them as much as possible in his ever changing plans. Minimise the damage to his side, maximise the damage to theirs. It was an eternal, never changing state of being. He took the cup of tea, silently placed where his hand most easily reached by Goyle. He was another who knew his place with certainty.

Draco sipped at the pungent liquid, long cooled to cold. The tea was bitter as always, with an unpleasant acrid aftertaste of the additional ingredients added, each one to heighten alertness and the constant prospective futures that flooded his mind. He drank it anyway, as he always did. Food and drink had no purpose other than to keep him doing his job, to ensure that he was operating at maximum potential. The herbal tea helped prevent any need for him to spare extra time eating. He had to eat, just as he had to sleep, but with the right mixtures of potions he could reduce the need with little negative impact on his mental capacity. His duty took precedence over everything else. He assumed that somewhere, in a room not dissimilar to his own base, Granger was doing something similar, thinking almost the same thoughts, only from the other point of view.

Lovegood appeared to have disappeared, which gave him cause for concern. On the one hand, any respite from her explosives was a relief, yet on the other the torturous wait plagued at his mind. He could hope that she had died, though until he had proof he couldn't discount her. Her attacks had always been unpredictable. It could be a concerted effort to lull him, to lull all the Death Eaters, into a sense of security before striking. It could be a preparation for a greater attack, with far more firepower than she'd used before. He suspected that she was, as always, continuing her father's work and research towards ever greater explosives.

He had moments of hope that she might be drawn to their side, though he knew it was futile. The Lovegoods had been as firmly allied to Dumbledore as the Malfoys had been to Voldemort. It didn't really matter what they believed, in a strange way. Draco had been raised his whole life with the expectation that he would hold a position similar to the one he had ascended to. There had never been a consideration of anything else. His training and education had all led towards it, every element taking into account what of his natural talents and personality still remained beneath his duty. And yet, with Lovegood he had had a moment of uncertainty. She had, after all, been close to Ginevra Weasley, and Ginevra had chosen Voldemort over her family. He had wondered if Lovegood might chose friendship over the sanctity of blood, or at the very least be susceptible to conversion. She would be useful, though having her dead or incapacitated in some way would also be good. Having her talents to deploy was ideal, though simply not having her blow up his side was all Draco really wanted. Right now, it all seemed too quiet. All the areas identified as vulnerable to attack were braced, but with nothing incoming it was difficult to maintain the level of vigilance required.

Draco knew that her father had been just as much a thorn in Voldemort's side, and was infinitely grateful that he had apparently retreated into his own private world of inventions rather than continuing attacking on the front lines. His death would obviously be preferable, as his inventions still caused extreme harm and general terror, but one less bomber to think of was always a relief. The Weasley twins were still operating, though their pattern was different. They worked as a duo, with a distinct style of combined explosions, whereas the Lovegoods had always been solitary. The Death Eaters often muttered that to get one Weasley twin would get both of them, solving the whole problem neatly, but Draco wasn't so optimistic. If one died or was imprisoned there was always a likelihood of the other waging a suicidal attack as a form of revenge, with the threat of death no longer effective. He just wanted them both dead, buried together in the same grave where they could no longer kill his soldiers or the innocents caught up in the blasts. Not that anyone with magic could be considered innocent, and those without weren't worthy of consideration.

He flicked his eyes back to the maps, finishing the bitter tea. The Ministry was under Voldemort's control, though it was inherently vulnerable to infiltration. For now, however, Voldemort had power. Hogwarts too, though through a different means. His father had always been a politician, and his mother a politician's wife, both so poised and polished in everything they did. His father's soft touch and his mother's charming smiles had played their role in capturing the Ministry and holding it in Voldemort's sway. His brother would no doubt follow in their father's footsteps, but it was the tactical solutions that had called to Draco. That he had that modicum of freedom when it came to choosing his path in life was one of the benefits of being the spare, rather than the heir. So he spent his days planning other people's deaths, choosing carefully for those under his command. He had little patience for diplomacy. He couldn't remember now how long it had been since he'd seen his family. Time outside of the skirmishes and manoeuvres had ceased to have any true meaning to him.

Snape controlled Hogwarts. He obeyed, as all Death Eaters did, but his hold on Hogwarts was uncontested, along with his power. With Ginevra by his side, he alone ruled the castle. Draco hadn't seen him since he had graduated from Hogwarts, and he was perfectly happy to keep it that way. The subtle fear he had always felt for Snape had merely risen, for all that they were supposedly on the same side. Even now, he couldn't forget that night on the Astronomy Tower, when Dumbledore's reign had abruptly been cut short. Snape had not been challenged since then, for good reason. His dealings with Hogwarts were always through Ginevra, for which he was grateful.

"General Malfoy,"

He frowned, still dissatisfied with the defences of the Ministry. There simply weren't enough people to place in all the positions needed, especially given the way that Voldemort would constantly make his demands for protection. Snape too would send him short instructions that he expected to be obeyed instantly, all connected to the security of Hogwarts. The tension there was growing, even if it was subtle. Voldemort's desire for a military presence at the school being met by Snape's refusal to allow Death Eaters on the premises as it inhibited education. Draco could see his point, the Auror presence that Dumbledore had allowed, especially given the complex power play that had existed, had definitely been a distraction from his education. And yet at the same time, the ability to observe and study in real time had been helpful for him. It was all he had to learn, anyway. It was all any of them were expected to learn, as there was no future but the battlefield.

"General Malfoy,"

He didn't like these lulls in action, they made him nervous. He knew Granger was planning something, and it was all up to him to figure out what it was before she could implement it, to take evasive and defensive action. He felt antsy, wanting on the one hand to attack and quash the enemy, but also worried of being drawn into a trap.

"Sir,"

Things had been going their way a lot recently, both in the way the Lovegoods seemed to have fallen off the map and the way the Death Eaters had finally managed to gain control of the majority of the strongholds of the magical world. And yet the situation was still too precarious. The balance had only recently tipped in their favour. Draco was all too aware that a slight mistake could send it all crashing back down, and his life would be forfeit along with the failure.

"Draco," the voice finally broke through his thoughts, pulling him back to the real world beyond the diagrams. He winced, his muscles agonisingly painful from the position he had been frozen in, body abandoned in favour of thought. Goyle's hand was on his shoulder, lightly reminding him of the physical dimension, an anchor he wished he could cast off. Goyle had known him long enough to know when he was listening, when he was mentally present instead of just physically. Goyle could feel the change beneath his fingertips.

"Ginevra is here to see you," he said, the concern spilling through the consonants and vowels, drenching Draco with secondary worry. Draco glanced again at his maps, the golden lines and symbols shining. He was reluctant to leave them, reluctant to put them from his mind for even a minute. But he knew that this was an order he could not disobey. Ginevra had been chosen and groomed by Voldemort himself, starting at such a tenderly young age, even if she had ultimately chosen Snape as her master.

He allowed himself to be guided out of his chamber, aware and ashamed of how he was presented, towards where she waited for him. He had once taken pride in being immaculately dressed, hair always clean and styled. He couldn't even remember when he had last washed, let alone paid attention to anything concerning his appearance. His normal existence had no need for such minor vanities. His mind, his magic and his fitness were the only things that mattered. Yet Ginevra made him feel the hot flush of shame, as she was not only separated from the bubble he secluded himself in but also she could remember what he had been like, when he had still believed it possible to have a life that belonged to him. Or maybe he was overestimating his own worth, by assuming that she would notice, remember or even care. She had always been dismissive, knowing with an impressive assuredness that everyone except Snape was beneath her. But at the same time, there was no way in which he dared to keep her waiting, even for a quick spell. It was a waste of magic he could not justify, and any illusion she would no doubt see right through, merely providing more ammunition for mockery.

She wore a backless gown, as always. It was just one of the many ways that she reminded Draco of his aunt. Bellatrix too liked to ensure her Dark Mark was visible at all times, flaunting the symbol with pride. He didn't think he had ever seen Bellatrix wear anything that covered the elaborate skeletal snake that wound it's way across her back, just like it did across his and every other Death Eater's. From the moment she had ceased to be a student required to wear her school uniform, Ginevra had too displayed her Dark Mark in full, making everyone wonder how long she had borne it in secret. Draco did not allow himself to wonder or question aloud. That way led to danger. He could not afford to make an enemy of Ginevra any more than he could of Bellatrix.

Like Bellatrix, Ginevra was beautiful, powerful and cruel, so it made sense to Draco that she looked in part like her. That she would have chosen to model herself after the older woman. He doubted that he was the only one who had noticed the similarities. He had noted them carefully, always being deferential to her as he was to his aunt. She might officially be just the personal assistant to the Headmaster of Hogwarts, but Draco knew she was far more. In a way, most people knew her power and position went far beyond it, the quiet assumption that no one quite dared to voice, in case of violent retribution from the old guard.

Ever since Snape had disposed of Dumbledore, a decisive and clinical murder, Draco had known that it was just a matter of time. It had been the first step in consolidating his power, ensuring that he held total control over Hogwarts. Voldemort, for all that he might wish to present the image, was not actually immortal, and Belatrix most definitely was not either. They would be replaced, and Snape had proved to be perfectly capable of taking his time, waiting for the perfect moment. It would come, and once Snape stood in Voldemort's place, with Ginevra by his side, Draco would continue on without protest. He had no interest in dying for Voldemort's dictatorship. In his mind, deep down where no one would ever know, he had already accepted the inevitable regime change. It was no longer a cause for concern, his position and life would continue on, smoothly and steadily. Some days he wondered if anything would ever truly change. Whoever was in charge, whoever was ruling the roost, the war seemed like it would continue forever more, as persistent and unchangeable as the universal gravitational constant. It was a piece of the scenery, a trickling tendril stretching through history from before the Founders to a future that Draco no longer thought of. He had lost hope that anything would change, that they would ever win. Both sides were equally matched, for all that Voldemort seemed to be in control.

Potter was still alive and out there, as far as the intelligence Draco was desperately tracking knew. He was prophesied to end everything, and no matter where anyone stood on prophecies he was still a dangerous and unpredictable enemy. Granger was a formidable opponent. Even if her army was suffering, as long as she controlled them Draco couldn't relax. He wondered if she had already nominated her replacement, for when she died or was incapacitated. He wondered how the other side handled those matters. He had a few deputies he considered to be worthy successors, but that all hinged on whether he remained in favour, both with Voldemort and eventually with Snape. It was part of the reason he was so careful to remain in Ginevra's good books, just as he had always done with Bellatrix.

Thus far, all of his meetings with Ginevra had been fully clothed, at least on Draco's end. Ginevra's clothing tended to leave little to the imagination, but she had yet to remove them in his presence. Maybe that would change once the regime changed. Maybe it was just that for now, Snape was satisfying her as Voldemort was clearly failing to do with Bellatrix. Or maybe it was just a case of different tastes and appetites. Draco just appreciated that they would talk tactics and nothing more. His mouth spoke words of practicality, no further action was required of it, she cared little for what pleasure he could provide for her. He had no need of scaldingly hot showers to scrub off every lingering trace of her essence after their meetings behind closed doors, as nothing happened that wasn't entirely above boards. Meetings with Bellatrix always filled him with dread, knowing he would have to devote time to satisfying her before scouring himself of her, precious time that should have been spent on his duty. But maybe that was a part of his duty. His Lord had more important things to do, and his second had needs. Maybe Snape too would become distracted and more withdrawn than he already was from reality as the magic took him. Maybe then Ginevra would need to look elsewhere for her fuel and inspiration. Or maybe they were different. Draco blanked all such thoughts from his mind, a hopeless and pointless distraction.

"Goyle," she said curtly, the name enough to dismiss him. He nodded his understanding, a bow of deference as he withdrew. Draco wondered vaguely how Ginevra felt a seeing Goyle, the way his skin was partially melted and fused, mottled and destroyed. It had been one of the Weasley twins' many chemical weapons. Goyle had been far enough away to survive, though not far enough away to be unaffected. Draco was used to the distorted face, but he knew somewhere in the back of his mind that it was hideous. Did Ginevra feel anything at seeing the outcome of her brothers' handiwork, or did she no longer consider them to be her brothers. She had definitely shed her last name, like a snake shedding its skin to reveal a whole new entity hidden within.

He was able to see beyond the skin that continued to rot to see the boy he had played with in the brief spell of innocence, before he had realised that their childhood games were just training exercises for the war machine. Few people bothered, though. Goyle served his purpose, but one day he would be disposed of as they all were. But he served as a walking reminder of the dangers of the varied chemicals the Weasley twins had at their disposal. Sometimes it felt like their poisons and toxins, their creative destruction, was only increasing. Or maybe it was just that Draco was witnessing it and everything that had happened had already happened a million times before, history repeating itself in a never-ending war.

He suspected that she felt nothing, believed rightly that Goyle deserved the pain for his weakness. He had been too slow and too powerless. The entire reason for fighting the war was to eliminate those that were unworthy, leaving only those of true magical power to breed a pure society. No matter what he might give the war effort, Goyle did not meet the criteria. His breeding was adequate, it was true, but his composition was lacking. He didn't have the capabilities to elevate him beyond the plebeian masses destined for death. It pained Draco, to acknowledge his one-time friend's flaw. He was attached, emotionally, to the man who had been his childhood friend, and so he held on to him, keeping him in his service where another might have acted more rationally and disposed of him. Dispatched him to die in the service of their Lord. Draco accepted, his heart heavy to consider it, that one day it was likely that he would have to order his friend's death, whether directly or indirectly. Those things were necessary. Looking at Ginevra, he felt weak as he always did, knowing without a shred of doubt that she would have no such hesitations. The only living person she cared for was Snape, everything else was pure power. Uncompromising ideals. The way it should be.

"Malfoy," she said, her eyes flickering to his, cold and disinterested as always. From anyone else it would have been insubordination, just a surname without a title or anything to convey respect, but from Ginevra he could give no objections. Even her use of 'Lord' when addressing Voldemort was rare, almost begrudging, though subtle enough that it had never become an issue. It was only Snape she now gave the honour of a title, always calling him Headmaster. Draco wondered idly if she called him that in bed, before dismissing it from his mind. It was an unwelcome image, and one that would likely get him into trouble if it was picked up on. Either that or he would be invited along, a prospect he wished to avoid.

"Ginevra," he replied steadily, "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

Standing before her, he felt simultaneously both underdressed and overdressed, a combination brought about by his skin being infinitely more covered than her's, but by a considerably less attractive outfit. He had yet to see her in anything as low cut as the styles Bellatrix preferred, but today's number had an elegant keyhole cut into it to show not only the curve of her breasts, but providing a peep hole to the actual flesh. He had, after all, never known his aunt at the age Ginevra was now. She exuded a glamour he couldn't feel, a sultry seductress while he felt worn and old. His uniform, practical and plain, seemed so dull and puritanical in comparison. He knew, of course, that just like Bellatrix her clothes could melt away into something more suited for battle with barely a word. He imagined that they could melt away to nothing just as easily, though he had yet to see her do so. It was a skill his aunt often demonstrated to him, her demands clear. For now Ginevra did nothing more than hint, showing the whole world tantalising glimpses while keeping her ideological allegiances displayed on her back, just as everyone knew her body and heart belonged to her Headmaster.

"Have Mulciber removed from Hogsmeade," she said sharply. Draco winced, though he kept the reaction as imperceptible as possible. Hogsmeade was always a thorny issue. It was close enough to Hogwarts that Snape and Ginevra could rightly consider it to be within their domain, and given the strong links it had with the school they exerted a significant amount of influence over it merely by association and proximity. However, it was outside of the castle boundaries, a village in its own right. To be flexing their muscles and making demands on the Death Eaters stationed at Hogsmeade, especially something so specific, suggested that the take over was imminent. It seemed to Draco to be a first step towards finally deposing Voldemort.

Anyone else and he would have questioned her, asked for a reason for her demand. But Ginevra he couldn't. It was not politically wise. Besides, he knew Mulciber's reputation. A reason would be easy to provide, especially with the students still able to visit the village unsupervised. Positioning Mulciber so near to the children, even if they were soldiers-in-training, had always been a risky decision. The decision had been Voldemort's, imposed on Draco. It had been another moment where he had felt trapped between two warring factions, each one subtly undermining the other and pushing their limitations almost to breaking point. As such it was also a clever request, as it meant that it could simply be taken as a safety issue, an educational issue, something unconnected to the rule of Hogwarts. Draco doubted that the safety of the students was the really concern of either Ginevra or Snape.

"In due time," Draco said, his mind whirring to think of how best to orchestrate it. He had to ensure that it was done, or risk the wrath of both Ginevra and Snape. He knew the order would have come from Snape, Ginevra was merely the messenger, if one with power and influence that far surpassed his own. Disobeying Snape was a foolish choice, even had he wished to cling on to the tattered remains of his once all-consuming loyalty to Voldemort, and Ginevra would be only too happy to have him pay the price for that slight, he had no doubt. He also had to ensure it was done in a way that meant Voldemort would not suspect him of disloyalty and his aunt would have no reason to punish him. He knew that that was a feeble hope, as his aunt needed few reasons to punish him. Sometimes she punished him and took pleasure from his submissiveness even without a concrete reason. At least Ginevra still seemed to operate under a logic he could understand, where cause and effect existed.

She seemed unimpressed with him, as she was with the world in general. It was not an instant answer, but she showed no signs of temper. She pursed her lips, red and sensual, more deadly than sexual. But she nodded, sparing him any retribution he might have received, clearly aware that this game was best won through careful plotting and planning. She was still more patient and more stable than his aunt. Still dressed in her slinky black dress. Still waiting, besides Snape, for the moment they would strike. A swirling mass of black bats slowly tearing the flesh from an old, giant snake that had once struck terror into mortal minds.


	9. December 2017

I'm not certain if I will continue posting this on here, as the next chapter may cross over into too explicitly adult in theme. I'm not certain yet, it depends slightly on how the phrasing plays out. Phrasing aside, it's relatively disturbing. But if you do want to continue reading it then I will definitely be continuing to post it on AO3 (where I am also PhantomEngineer), so maybe consider heading over there?

...

Harry was beyond relieved when they finally pulled into the drive of his childhood home. He had driven, a task he had not particularly enjoyed. Ginny and Luna had cheerfully sat in the back, passing over all responsibility to him. Severus had unhelpfully picked up the tattered remains of the road atlas that was shoved in the front passenger door, opened it to a random page and declared that he would not be navigating as he was blind. While Harry had grown up in the area, he had not needed to pay attention to the roads as a young child, so he was eternally grateful to the satnav for guiding them. As always, the one way system had been a nightmare, but there had been something quaintly nostalgic about it. He'd passed through the city centre plenty of times, but it had been a long time since he'd done so in a car. That was something he associated with childhood, from memories of being driven to the sports centre for swimming lessons to memories of Vernon returning from the weekly shop at the supermarket full of worn out complaints about the traffic.

They piled out of the car into the cold drizzle before being ushered into the warmth of the house, passing the threshold with no problems. Harry noticed the iron horseshoe was still nailed above the door, warding the house from malicious magic no matter that it no longer existed. He no longer felt the crawling discomfort that had grown as he'd aged, with each return from Hogwarts being greeted with a greater push from the wards. He had never told the Dursleys, and now he wondered what it was that had caused the change. Was it the case that all magic was malicious in some way, or was it that as he distanced himself from his family the wards began to see him as a stranger, a threat to the muggles within. He assumed Ginny and Severus, with their Death Eater tattoos, would have found it explicitly unpleasant while magic still lingered in the world. Even though it was not a strong ward, nothing capable of keeping anyone with power and determination out, it would still have provided a hinderance to those that wished the family ill. He had never thought to ask where Vernon and Petunia had acquired their knowledge, as it occurred to him now that it was magic theory they had been drawing on for long before he had ever understood it himself. Even without the threat of magic, Petunia still decorated the house with sprays of holly above every entrance, including the windows and fireplace, a habit that no doubt appeared to be eccentric to the general population.

Hermione and Draco had arrived earlier, their car impressively parked in a corner of the drive that Harry hadn't even realised it was possible to park in. The drive wasn't designed for two cars, let alone three, just as the house was clearly bursting at the seams with people. Dudley and his partner Jess had come up by train, so while they were adding bodies to the house that was designed for considerably smaller numbers, they were at least not adding a car. They didn't own one, living a lifestyle in an area of London that allowed them to use public transport for everything, a stark contrast to the isolation of the house Harry had spent the last few months in. Harry had needed to adjust to the lack of easy public transport, so vastly different to the rhythm of life he had grown accustomed to over the last few years. He still missed the ease of living in a bustling city, appreciating anew the convenience of infrastructure, but at the same time he liked the way in which time seemed to be irrelevant without timetables and the way the night sky looked without light pollution.

Petunia ushered them into the hallway, the carpet more threadbare than it had been when Harry was a child. The walls still had newspaper clippings of cute animals, a tradition started when Harry and Dudley had been young that had never been discontinued. The animals had changed, some of the clippings having yellowed and disintegrated, but the atmosphere was the same as the one he remembered from his childhood.

"Ginny, Luna, you're in your usual room," Petunia said enveloping each of them in turn in a gentle hug, "Severus you too. Harry you're on the floor of your old room, sorry. I gave Severus the bed,"

Harry shrugged, not minding. He hadn't really expected anything different. He returned the hug, taking simple pleasure from it. He had spent his teenage years returning from Hogwarts to those same hugs, standing in that same hallway, but then he had not appreciated them. As the years had gone on he had cut the welcoming hugs short, shrugging them off as if they were a nuisance distracting him from what really mattered. For a moment Harry felt like he was holding something delicate and precious in his arms, a feeling that grew stronger every time the hugged him to welcome him home now that he had come full circle.

The hallways seemed too small, filled with bodies exchanging greetings, crowded and chaotic. Luggage cluttered the space, dumped hurriedly on stairs and in corners to free arms to the more pressing matter of hugs. In amongst the heaving mass of the people he cared the most for in the entire world, Harry moved from his aunt to hug his uncle, a warm embrace that reminded him of being a young child with no idea of the future the world held for him. Vernon was older now, brown hair faded to thinning grey. The moustache, a stable of his childhood that vanished during his teenage years, was back, though that too was grey. He seemed less solid, as if age had crept up slowly while Harry wasn't looking, the arms that had once carried him up the stairs to bed seemed weaker. Harry wasn't sure if he seemed smaller because he had so rarely hugged Vernon since the first time he left for Hogwarts, or if it was age. In many ways, it didn't matter. Either reason hurt.

He wore glasses now, a product of age, but they didn't hide the small scar by his right eyebrow. It was barely noticeable to pretty much anyone else, but Harry found comfort in it. That had been from before Hogwarts, before Harry even knew magic had been real. Petunia had gone away for a weekend, to visit an old school friend, leaving Vernon alone with Harry and Dudley. They'd been playing cricket in the garden. Dudley had bowled, Harry had been batting. He'd hit the ball over Vernon's head, who'd leaned back to try to catch it. He hadn't noticed the large plant pot behind him, which he'd tripped over dramatically crashing down heavily onto the patio, giving him the scar but also breaking several ribs. Harry had stayed with him while Dudley ran round to the neighbours to ask them to drive Vernon to the hospital. Petunia had been alarmed at the impressive black eye that she had been greeted with when she arrived back from her relaxing weekend. It had not been the last time Petunia came back from a short break away to find that Vernon had been driven to the hospital by the neighbours. Dudley and Harry had innocently joked that it must be a cruse. The adults had gone strangely quiet at that, and Petunia had never gone away for weekends again. Harry wondered now if it had really been some kind of curse, but it was too late to investigate. It no longer really mattered.

His hug with Dudley could have gone on for an eternity, time stretching into infinity. Dudley was still bigger than him, he had always been taller and Harry had never caught up. For his early childhood he'd looked up to his older cousin, who'd repaid the favour by protecting him from as much of the world as he possibly could. He hadn't been able to protect him from the magical world or Voldemort though, and by the point when Harry might have welcomed the thought he had long since thrown it off. Every summer when he arrived back from Hogwarts, fresh off the train his mind full of magic, Dudley would envelope him in a hug, a whole years love condensed into one gesture. Every summer Harry pushed him away sooner, barely talking to him in preference to heading to his room to read his textbooks. Every summer Harry had ignored the growing sadness on Dudley's face, so now he let the hugs last as long as Dudley wanted, relaxing into the welcoming proof that he was loved. No matter how far he might go, he always had a home. He knew that made him lucky.

It had been through Jess, Dudley's partner, that Harry had had a small flat to stay in for the time he spent in Hong Kong. It had been cheap and small, a commute away from the centre of the city. He'd had to learn some basic Cantonese just to get by, and then some more for his own sense of pride. Recognising the characters had made learning Japanese kanji easier, though any similarities between the two languages pretty much ended there. Sometimes he still found himself missing chickens feet, a meal he'd never expected to enjoy as much as he had. He didn't know her well, and he realised that in some ways that was sad. He might have stayed longer with Dudley down in London had she not been around, but being unemployed and living on your cousin's sofa was harder when your cousin had a partner. Not that she had given him the slightest impression that she would have minded, Harry knew it was all just in his mind, just as he knew Dudley would never himself make any negative comparisons between Harry's life of erratic employment and his own steady career as a civil servant.

Greetings exchanged and bags dumped on their assigned beds, the eclectic collection of characters congregated in the living room. The Christmas tree was up, though still undecorated, shoved unceremoniously in a corner. Draco and Hermione would sleep on the sofa-bed, to be folded out at night, so their belongings were neatly piled in the corner. During Harry's childhood they hadn't needed as many sofas, but now that the room was filled with people he marvelled how he had ever thought it to be a big room. It seemed spacious when empty and with little furniture. Full of people talking on sofas it seemed barely able to contain them all.

The Christmas decorations were in cardboard boxes, the same old boxes they'd always been in, opened and beneath the tree. As children Harry and Dudley had decorated the tree, now he sat and watched as Luna and Vernon did it. Some of the decorations were still handmade trinkets made by him and Dudley, somehow lovingly preserved throughout the decades. Some of them were newer, though not particularly Christmassy. He saw a number of the various talismans and charms he had sent back from across the globe being hung up, pretty Korean traditional weaving taking their place next to a bell made from an egg cup by a five year old Dudley. In some ways it seemed to sum up the entire room perfectly, a strange meeting of vastly different people that shouldn't make sense and yet somehow came together to provide a weird beauty through their difference.

Plane tickets tended to be expensive around the Christmas holidays, and for some countries the time off was short anyway. Not everywhere celebrated it, and even then there were wide varieties. He'd almost forgotten what it felt like. Maybe had he been raised religious there might have been some form of conflict holding him to it, but the Dursleys had always held a family-orientated secular celebration, private and warm. Harry hadn't been been home for Christmas since before he left for Hogwarts. He had barely noticed. He had barely been home for a long time. It was strangely nostalgic, to see the tree up and the sprigs of holly pinned to the walls. There was a sorrowful tinge to everything, a sensation of time past that would never be recovered. He had no way of knowing how long it had been a casually accepted tradition for Vernon to help Luna reach up to hang Petunia's old bamboo angel to the top of the tree, the same way he had once helped his son and nephew.

It was cozy, to be wrapped up warm inside the familiar old house, the curtains drawn against the miserable weather. Mince pies and mulled wine were passed around, too many cups and plates for the small coffee table really, but with some delicate manoeuvring it was just about possible. In many ways there was no need to exchange news, as while it had been a while since they had all seen each other, especially together as a group, they did communicate most days via some medium or other. Had the scores been different, both Dudley and Draco would undoubtably be talking about the Ashes, but they had both agreed to pretend they didn't exist. Draco had expressed this mostly through the use of emoji in their WhatsApp group chat.

In amongst the idle chatter, conversations of people entirely relaxed in each other's company, Harry found himself telling a silly story about his bike in Japan, which he'd bought cheaply second hand and consequently the brakes had been dodgy at best. That wasn't really the point of the story, but it was the element that the others picked up on.

"All of the effort some of us put into killing you, and we could have just given you a bike with crappy brakes," Draco complained petulantly, sighing in disgust.

"Draco!" Hermione exclaimed, partially in horror, partially in amusement, laughter breaking through her despairing expression.

"What, it's true," Draco pointed out, before continuing as if to provide balance, "And the effort some of us put into keeping you alive. You'd think you'd be more careful,"

"Sometimes I wonder how you two managed to get married," Dudley commented, shaking his head. He knew that while Draco had no particular qualms anymore about reminding everyone that he had been a feared Death Eater, it didn't mean he had any actual remaining beliefs that would match up to their ideals. Without magic, there was no real meaning to the concept. They had all changed from their roles in the war to people who gathered together for Christmas.

"It's because I'm perfect," Draco answered, at the same time as Hermione said, "It's because we don't listen to each other,"

Draco shrugged, as if accepting that Hermione's reason was probably more likely. Harry knew it wasn't really either of the reasons given, more a case of that they both knew when to take each other seriously, that they had found some kind of balance in the other and could talk over whatever they needed to. At the end of the day, all he really had to know was that it was what it was, and accept it.

"Could… could we try to be positive, maybe?" Petunia asked hopefully, in a manner that suggested that she made the request most years in some shape or form.

"It would be a very quiet Christmas indeed," Severus commented, inhaling the spices of his mulled wine with a relaxed air. He clearly didn't seem to hold any hopes that they would manage to be exclusively cheerful.

"Ideally not too much sarcasm either," Petunia continued wistfully, seemingly dreaming of a Christmas that would probably require the rewriting of their pasts.

"Think that would mean a silent Christmas," Ginny said, poking Severus. He looked faintly wounded, an expression betrayed by the hint of a smile playing around his lips. Harry bit back a laugh, knowing that everyone would continue talking regardless, sometimes about miserable things and sometimes sarcastically.

"I want to go to Hawai'i," Luna said thoughtfully, the desire coming out of the blue as far as Harry could tell, "Or Japan,"

Her statement, despite being softly spoken, captured everyone's attention, quietening the volume to a whimsical, dreamy level.

"Why didn't you say so while I lived there?" Harry asked, momentarily frustrated. He'd lived in both places for a decent amount of time. He winced slightly, guiltily, as Luna seemed to retreat inwards, curling up as if she was trying to merge with Ginny beside her.

"I want to see volcanoes," she murmured through red hair, giving Harry a guilty look. He sighed, a feeling of hopelessness sinking into him.

"You hate enclosed spaces," Petunia said calmly, sensibly, without judgement, "You don't even like cars, a long-haul plane flight would be far worse sweetheart,"

Harry wondered if she'd know when she took him in that she would end up adopting by association a strange collections of adults. He could tell from the gentle way she smiled at Luna, coaxing her back out of her shell as if she had accepted she could well spend the rest of her life needing to do so, that she had no regrets. Each of them was broken in their own way, but broken wasn't worthless. Broken was loving repaired, rebuilt and treated with respect.

"I know," Luna said sadly, playing with her hair, eyes downcast. She looked too young, thin fingers emerging from an oversized knitted jumper long enough to pass for a dress, a delicate bird unable to fly.

"You're improving," Ginny reassured her, her eyes briefly seeming overly bright as if glistening with tears, "You did great today,"

It was true, as far as Harry could tell. Luna hadn't enjoyed the car ride, but she had been calm throughout. He didn't want to remember the way she had screamed decades ago, but some nights he heard it in his nightmares, when the memories of the past came to call.

"On day I'll be able to," Luna said, her voice as strong as it could be, a determination she had once oozed effortlessly returning briefly. She seemed almost unsure of it, unsure of the characteristic he had associated with her throughout their Hogwarts years, but she had always persevered.

"Of course you will," Vernon said optimistically. Harry wondered if his eternal optimism had managed to survive everything against the odds, or if he had merely taken on the job of maintaining optimism in the face of all the despair those around him were prone to descending into. Luna smiled gratefully at him, soft uncertainty making her hands tremble as they tangled in her hair.

"I've been to some volcanoes," Severus said, breaking the silence that threatened to become maudlin. It was almost as if it were a distraction, a topic thrown out to help hide away the problems that might otherwise be dragged to the surface.

"When?" Hermione asked, expressing the mood of the room well. There was surprise both at the revelation but also at Severus talking about his past unprompted. He had refused to answer questions before, and a lot of what Harry had discovered about him had been through research rather than from the man himself.

"Summer holidays as a teacher. What did you think I spent my summers doing?" he replied, a hint of amusement weaving it's way through his intonation.

"I always kind of assumed you hung upside down in your store cupboard and hibernated until term began," Draco said offhandedly. Severus rolled his eyes but didn't otherwise deign to respond. He ignored the scattered laughter echoing from sofa to sofa.

"I thought you did something secret and mysterious connected to the war…" Hermione said, a more realistic assumption than Draco's. It was what Harry had always assumed too, that every moment of Severus's life outside of the classroom had been consumed with the war effort. Sometimes Severus would say things that suggested that to be true, but occasionally he would mention something that seemed to imply to brief fragments of a life outside of that.

Severus shook his head, "There was quite a lull, at least until you lot started Hogwarts. After that there were missions and so on. But there were whole summers before then with no orders at all so I sometimes went abroad,"

Harry knew the reason the lull had ceased once he began Hogwarts. His re-entry into the wizarding world had reignited the war. It had been then that Voldemort had started to return in earnest as well, shattering the brief illusion of peace that had captivated a few innocent souls before the world returned to its natural state of warfare.

"But you can't have had a passport," Dudley said, confused, "You didn't even have a birth certificate,"

Harry knew he spoke with the long suffering and knowledgable tone of the person who had mainly dealt with all the complex paperwork they had needed following their sudden and unplanned entry into the muggle world. It had been easier for him and Hermione, as they had at least been born and raised in the muggle world so they had birth certificates to prove their existence as people.

"Magic," Vernon answered for Severus, knowing what the answer would be even if Harry doubted he knew the details, "Come on, do you really think he flew on a plane? Regulations have changed a lot in the last few decades, but I'm pretty confident that bats have never been permitted as carry-on,"

Harry could see he wasn't the only one getting amusement out of the mental image of a young Severus, surrounded by his shadowy cloud of bats, being refused boarding by some very confused muggle airport staff. Severus seemed to be ignoring the faint sniggers.

"Wait, what?" Draco asked suddenly, derailing the subject, "That doesn't make sense? I mean, those of us born in the magical world sure, we didn't have muggle documents or anything and everything was swallowed with the Ministry, but I thought you were born in the muggle world?"

For a moment the room was quiet, a thoughtful silence falling. Severus tapped his nails against his mug, a distant expression on his face. Petunia looked at him with a strange, sympathetic and almost sad expression on her face, as if she knew a half-hidden secret that was almost on the tip of her tongue, half-forgotten and abandoned like a baby on a doorstep. Draco raised a good point, and he could see Dudley and Hermione both frowning as if they too were wondering why they had never before questioned that detail.

"I wasn't really. I wasn't born in either," Severus said slowly, before shrugging. He couldn't see the looks the others shared, but Petunia seemed to notice them, sighing slightly. He seemed almost unconcerned, as if he was talking about a complete stranger rather than himself.

"It's not like I can remember," he continued calmly, sipping from his mug. Harry wondered if he was entirely unaffected by the conversation, or if conversely his lack of emotions regarding the matter was because he was still affected even without the magic lingering on to hold him in its grasp. He knew it was unfair, but a part of him was pleased that for all the closeness of the others there were still mysteries that had been left unexplored. He knew that the feelings he sometimes had of being left out, of being out of the loop were all his own fault for not having been there for a long time and in no way an indication of the way any of the others felt about him, but still it hurt at times. It didn't stop a slight twinge of guilt from passing through him though.

"When Lily said she'd met a magical boy who lived in the forest or trees or something, we assumed she was talking about an imaginary friend," Petunia volunteered, her eyes gazing through time to old memories, "Especially when she added the bat detail in,"

Severus laughed. There had been a time, many years ago when Harry had believed him to be incapable of such an action. Now his question, eternally unasked, was merely whether or not it was something he had hidden away or whether there had been a fundamental change brought about by the collapse of the magical world that had allowed him to begin laughing.

"I think she was the first person I met, who wasn't my parents," Severus said thoughtfully, frowning slightly as if trying to recall memories that had been overwritten multiple times, searching for the faint traces of the original. The room was was so quiet Harry could almost hear their heartbeats, a silence so deep it was as if they had been enchanted. Some things were never discussed, so when they were everyone listened as if they were bewitched, as if they were afraid a slightest sound out of place might prove to be the counter spell that shattered the illusion and tore them back to reality.

"Maybe you'd have lived your life hidden away in the forests if you hadn't," Petunia mused, a slightly sad tone to her voice, though whether because she thought that option would have been better or worse Harry couldn't tell.

"Maybe," Severus acknowledged, his tone almost disinterested. His tone was always calm when talking about what he considered to be the ancient past, disconnected from the events despite them having happened to him.

"I can't quite remember," Petunia started, "But I think you look like your mother,"

There could have been no one but the two of them in the world. The others in the room definitely felt as if they were worlds apart, watching a conversation based on a reality that they only had the briefest of understandings of. Petunia looked like she wanted to reach out across the distance between them to take his hand, but it was the child she had met long ago she really wanted to touch, not the man he had become.

"Really?" Severus asked, a slightly wistful note echoing through the fibres of his being, touching his face curiously, as if trying to sense what he looked like, "I can't remember anything of them. I can't even remember their names, if I ever knew… The first time I heard the name Snape was at Hogwarts. I could have family even next door and I would never know… I don't even know if Severus was the name they gave me…"


End file.
